Re: [ontolog-forum] ontolog-forum Digest, Vol 144, Issue 11

[Dennis <dennis@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All:  A forum is supposed to be a place for open discussion.  Pat Hayes began this tread itching for a fight.  A forum is not a fracas and this group should not tolerate such behavior. 

David:  Thank you for being so gentlemanly in explaining FIBO behind the scenes and for extending the fact that FIBO is being built totally in the open.  

Mathew:  Thank you for getting it right out of the box concerning why FIBO is where it is right now.

William: after your initial punches, you certainly said the right thing with your words  "...necessary and valuable efforts like FIBO".

Pat:  If you indeed have the one right way for building and executing real world ontologies, the FIBO community is very interested in seeing this.  In the meantime there is nothing to be served by attacking the great work of others.  I have watched these "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" arguments lead to nothing useful many times.  FIBO is being engineered, tested and put to use today.  

John:  Thanks for putting FIBO on the table.  It is a shame that Pat and then William chose to initiate a food fight, rather than take a seat at the table.

Sincerely,

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO) (William Frank)
   2. Re: Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO) (William Frank)
   3. Re: Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO) (Adrian Walker)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 17:59:21 -0500
From: William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Financial Industry Business Ontology
        (FIBO)
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:
        <CALuUwtB-uKfqP-zW=+ZzN+Fpsx7M3zpXBCzy09LSTW3m=L_SJA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 5:13 PM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>
> Dear William,
>
> Well it is probably just as well then that the definition of ?thing? does
> not matter much at all for FIBO. For sure the text (probably arrived at by
> a committee) will have no weight at all. Only the formal constraints will
> actually matter.
>

Ah, thank you Mathew.  A return to sanity from my flame.   You are of
course completely right.  This, indeed, is my point about UML. Fortunately,
nobody CARES about its absurd separation of things into incontroverable
levels, each with its own 'language', even using different names for
categories of things (messages, classes, dogs) and their instances
(signals, objects, (but, gee, what are we going to call dog instances??)).


We ULM lovers just need those great and easy to draw with greawt tools
hierarchical state transition diagrams, sequence diagrams, activity
diagrams, that we call all foot to the same class diagrams, and the fact
that the mothers of uml don't like to let you put objects and classes is
the same diagram (because Fido and Dog are in different languages!) is just
a minor annoyance.

Same here,  the benefit of FIBO is not going to be a confused rehashing of
the ULM meta model, but what is actually the financial services
**content.**

However, with a richer, yet far more simple, more rational 'upper'
ontology, based as John suggests, on logic, especially, I think, on Common
Logic, so that we would be able to bounce around those different
'languages,' talking about properties, colors, red, and the red of my
sweater as easily as most 5 year olds can do, (at least before they are
taught UML or OWL, for that matter), their contribution would be more
directly usable in different languages, data modelling paradigms, and they
would be able to express a richer set of logically necessary relations (for
example, a trading TE, event with buyer B and seller S and traded asset A
results in a trade settlement commitment, which is a relation representing
a commitment with B playing the role of buyer and S as seller and A as
exchanged asset, which in term results in a settlement EVENT ES. ....
And, a repurchase agreement is a type of trade, with the added wrinkle that
repurchase agreements are based on standing agreements which are in fact
types of contracts, and a trade settlement commitment is a type of
contract.  Meaning that all of a sudden we are talking about 'a' repurchase
agreement, as if it were a type, and trade itself is being treated as a
type.   And, the transformation from standing repurchase contract to
repurhcase execution to settlement commitment to settlment event is in fact
a key part of the very meaning of these concepts.

I think this is at least as awkward to say in OWL as it is in UML.  I think
OWL is just old wine in a new Klein bottle. without all the other kinds of
pretty pictures I need.  On top of which, at least UML gives strong support
for the use of part-whole and attributive relations, which are fundamental
to financial services.  (For example, a "sushi bond' or a zero coupon bond
are NOT effectively modelled as TYPEs of bonds.  They are more effectively
understood as bonds, in which one of their parts has a relation to another
thing with another attribute.  (A U.S. sushi bond being a bond issued by
the U.S. agency of a Japanese company, denominated in dollars, and a zero
coupon bond being a bond in which the periodic payment terms of the bond is
'no periodic payments' -- i.e., the classifier depends on a characteristic
of one of the constituents of the bond, not the bond itself).  Now, given
that the OWL tutorial tells us that Chardonnay is a type of wine, instead
of a type of grape that can be used as a classifier of wines, and that we
should draw a box called Chardonnay that means wine type, as well as
another box that says White wine, and another that says Burgundy, the OWL
tuturial would have you treat a zero coupon Sushi bond and multiply
inheriting from Sushi bonds and zero coupon bond.   With all the
inventiveness of financial engineers, this gets impossibly ugly very fast.
At least new Wine 'types' need 10 years for the vines to mature.

OTOH, I guess that one can't expect to be making advances in an application
of ontology, like FIBO, while at the same time advancing ontology itself.
Yet, this just shows how poor a foundation weakly thought out upper
ontologies like those of UML and OWL give for necessary and valuable
efforts like FIBO.


What I would be much more concerned about is the definition of something
> specific to the financial industry that will actually be acted on, so
> something like Allotment Right. Even then, of course, a textual definition
> does no more than give guidance as to the intended interpretation. I?m sure
> that there will be multiple models possible. I expect that almost all the
> terms defined in FIBO are primitive.
>
> The main purpose of this ontology will be that different organizations
> will use the terms with the same meaning, the value will come not from
> reasoning but from reduced time and cost from data not having to be
> translated between the different and independent classification schemes
> used by different organizations.
>
> Good text definitions at the operational level will be critical for this
> since it will be people making the mappings.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Matthew West
>
> *Information  Junction*
>
> Mobile: +44 750 3385279
>
> Skype: dr.matthew.west
>
> matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
>
> https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>
> This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
> and Wales No. 6632177.
>
> Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,
> Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
> ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *William Frank
> *Sent:* 14 December 2014 21:48
> *To:* [ontolog-forum]
> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO)
>
>
>
> And, to follow on John's remark, of course the authors of this ontology
> standard never studied, or at least never learned, any axiomatic
> mathematics or theory of definition, whereby all defined terms need to be
> rooted in primitive, undefined, terms, in a partial order with the
> undefinable primitive terms as the roots.
>
> The 'meaning' of primitive terms can't be provided in a definition, for
> obvious reasons.  They are only given p 'meaning' in terms of their use
> with respect to each other, as specified by the axioms.
>
> As a result, they do not know the difference between:
>
> a definition, whereby a term to be defined, a definiendum, is defined
> using an _expression_ (the definiens) with which the denifiniedum can be
> replaced.
>
>
>
> an explication, whereby a primitive term is loosely explained in terms of
> some examples of its use, some of its likely interpretations in other
> languages, just to give a little more human weight to the intent of the
> primitive terms.
>
>
>
> Clearly, they intended 'thing' to be a primitive term, which means, that
> ***in their context***, and most of the likely useful ones I can imagine,
> 'thing' will be undefinable.   But it is not undefinable in and of itself.
> It is only in the context of a given axiomatic system that a term used in
> the system is primitive or defined.  For example, 'or' and 'plus' are
> primitive in some axiomatizations of Boolean algebra and arithmetic, and
> not in others.  (I have been told too often that 'or' is 'really' a bunch
> of nands, whatever really is supposed to mean here.)
>
>
>
> I would imagine, though, that they intended to be using other primitive
> terms, in addition to 'thing'.   Since 'things' are what they want to show
> in boxes.  I imagine there are some arrows flying around somewhere, too.
>
> Sadly, after all this time, a new 'standard' that does not regard what you
> put in a box or what you put on an arrow as a matter of a modelling
> decision, or a matter of the syntax you use to name the concept (gerunds,
> lamda operators, etc., anyone?) that is, how you want to CAST the concept,
> depending on the focus of the domain, but instead still imagines that these
> syntactic choices and accidents are something **essential** about the very
> concept.
>
> So, according to standards like this, we can't REcast anything.   Marriage
> can't be cast as either an event or as a relation, so any relationship
> between marriage and divorce ceremonies and marriage relationships is
> purely coincidental.  Moreover, whichever of those two marriage 'really'
> is, I guess a marriage could certainly never be a 'thing.'   (Before UML, I
> doubt anyone had invented an artificial language in which it was actually
> *impossible* for human thought to occur.  Fortunately, people who actually
> use UML, like me, use the pretty pictures, and try their best to forget
> about its ontological absurdity, in the unlikely event that they ever were
> exposed to that dark glass in the first place.)
>
> Wm
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 3:56 PM, William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> I wish words failed me, too.    But my outrage needs some words to go with
> it.
>
> I am **most** concerned not with how egregiously AWFUL this is, but what
> it means about the engineering culture in which this could occur.
>
> There are two disfunctional characteristics that seem to me to be at play
> here.
>
> 1.Standardize everything first, then use it later, if at all.   No more
> try before you buy.  Back in pre-history, things like SQL and C were
> introduced, adopted, then finally turned into standards.  Now, every time
> somebody has a new idea (or even, as in this case, seems to wish they were
> having an idea), the FIRST thing they do is to define a 'standard'.
>
> 2. Talk (or code) first, learn (or reuse) never.   This subject, as we
> here all love to yammer on about, has a history more than 2000 years old,
> about which lots has been learned.  So, the modern day experts on how to
> effectively stipulate what an ontology will mean by the term 'thing', as
> well as how to effectively construct defintions,  have a great deal of help
> from the shoulders on which they stand.   This so-called standard, on the
> other hand, is like a nightmare of jumbled words that might have popped up
> in the 2000 years of incremental improvement in our understanding of what
> is useful to cast as a 'thing', and when.
>
>
>
> I am sure the roots of these patterns are economic, as are the roots of
> most things, but  in the past few millenia of science and engineering,
> there have been many celebrated endeavors motivated by the desire to
> increase our understanding of things.  (or maybe, our understanding of
> "sets of individuals which are defined according the facts (properties)
> given for that kind of thing. ")
>
> Although unnecessary, I can't help but repeat Pat's quote from the
> standard and attack a few of its more obvious failings.   Here is what
> these people sponsored by the OMG and propose as a standard for the
> Financial Industry:
>
> "A Thing is defined as the set of individuals which are defined according
> the facts (properties) given for that kind of thing. "
>
> Well, in general, circular definitions are undesireable.
>
> So, they have the concept of individual, as a primitive from which Thing
> is constructed. So, presumably, individuals are NOT things.
>
>
> Second, they do not distinquish between facts and properties, suggesting
> that they will have a really hard time when it comes to dealing with the
> different meta types in the ontology.
>
> The capstone of the absurdity, though, is that in defining thing, they
> rely on, as part of the definition of thing, the concept of 'KIND of
> thing.'  How are we to know what a kind of thing is, before we know what a
> thing is?
>
> Looking at this some more though, alot of the nonsense in the official
> semantics for the Unified Modelling Language seems to be embedded here, in
> that they seem to be making the same fallacy, that individuals and types
> are so entirely different in nature that we can't even talk about them in
> the same language.    Of course, the so-called 'semantics' of UML itself
> has the same disfunctional roots as this stuff does.   Lets make some money
> for our companies that make tools for O-O languages.
>
> No wonder ontology is not more widely respected, if this is the kind of
> stuff that happens.
>
>
> Wm
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> This is hopelessly confused. The technical part of it is nonsense. Just as
> a sample:
>
> "6.3.3.1 Thing
> A Thing is a set theory construct. This is shown on the diagrams as a box
> with a name. On some diagrams, additional
> textual entries in the box show the Simple Properties about that thing.
> A Thing is defined as the set of individuals which are defined according
> the facts (properties) given for that kind of thing. "
>
> Words fail me at this point. How is it possible for educated adult human
> beings to get themselves so unbelievably muddled over what should be one of
> the simplest ideas ever stated?
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> On Dec 14, 2014, at 12:40 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > A report on the FIBO project:
> >
> >
> http://edmcouncil.org/view/reports/20141121_FIBO_Report_to_Members.pdf
> >
> > See below for excerpts from the FIBO Semantics Repository Home Page.
> >
> > John
> > ___________________________
> >
> > Source:  http://www.edmcouncil.org/semanticsrepository/index.html
> >
> > This website provides a partial report of sections of the Financial
> > Industry Business Ontology (FIBO). This is being submitted to the Object
> > Management Group (OMG) as a set of proposed standard ontologies under
> > the FIBO umbrella. These FIBO OMG specifications are optimized for
> > semantic technology applications.
> >
> > Alongside these we are working to release the full canonical reference
> > ontology (as seen in these pages) as RDF/OWL...
> >
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 19:40:05 -0500
From: William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Financial Industry Business Ontology
        (FIBO)
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:
        <CALuUwtDD2TrmXsqNMjqo-HjQHjTneZmTnvVtFOmkkivreESEnQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 4:52 PM, <David.Newman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>  This is the first time that I am corresponding to the Ontolog-Forum,
> which I follow with great interest.  In my role as Chair of the FIBO effort
> I would like to briefly address recent comments made on this thread.
>
>
>
Hi, David

Sorry to have been so obstreperous.  My ire is really not at FIBO, but at
the confusion of the foundational stuff, that as Mathew West pointed out,
is really not germane to the value that might be found in FIBO.


>  FIBO is a highly collaborative effort of the financial industry to
> communicate a common representation of financial constructs using RDF/OWL
> ontologies.
>

Well, there is the thing, I think of RDF and OWL as languages in which
ontologies might be expressed, and, given their paucity of logical
categories, only with great difficulties, compared with what one can do
with Common Logic, or with ordinary first order logic, or in a diagramnatic
language like .  And, I think that OWL suffers from the same origin of
ontological confusion as UML in regard to the FIBO definition of 'thing.'

Breifly, in O-O programming languages, programmers define classes, mostly
at coding time, and objects are instantiated from classes, mostly at run
time.

As metamodel for an ontology of anything except software and its execution,
this is most absurd.   Whether the chicken or the egg comes first, what
most definitely does *not* come first is the concept of a chicken or the
*type* of thing whose instances are called 'chickens'.  I never saw the
concept of a chicken instantiate a chicken, but eggs, which are very
different from chickens, do in fact instantiate chickens.


> We know our efforts are not perfect, but they do significantly advance the
> state of the art in an industry that is in great need of standardization
> and transparency.
>

Very true.


> We are designing and pragmatically testing ontologies both for conceptual
> human facing benefit as well as for executable and operational purposes.
> We have invested in RDF/OWL because it is more expressive than the many
> conventional legacy modeling techniques used in the industry to date.  We
> are using UML only as a means of communicating the specification developed
> in RDF/OWL for submission to the OMG?s standardization process, which is an
> OMG requirement.  We expect users of FIBO to leverage RDF/OWL not UML.
>

Personally, I don't think that makes so much difference, in that whatever
notation one choose to use, you don't HAVE to accept its more common
metaphysical underpinnings.   Neither OWL nor UML forces people to build
deep hierachies.

It was not the notation I was objecting to, but rather the undercurrents I
found in your purported definition of 'thing'.

We are also developing a rigorous methodology for quality assurance testing
> of the ontologies,
>

Well, in general quality assurance has to be preceded by quality
standards.   Are there any quality standards that say definitions should
not be circular?

which not only includes ontology hygiene testing, but also business use
> case testing.  We also understand many of the limitations of RDF/OWL in
> terms of expressivity.  However, we believe this is a prudent and
> significantly positive step forward given the technical alternatives that
> are available to us within the industry.
>
>
I wonder whether you considered what might be simpler alternatives like
concept graphs or SKOS.

>
>
> If you believe that you have a better way of contributing to the greater
> good then please sign up for one of our working groups and suggest to the
> many ontologists and practitioners who are already volunteering their time
> and expertise on how exactly you would improve upon what has been done.
> You are most welcome to channel your outrage into contribution.
>

Thanks.    We should talk about this.   But, I am trying to not only be
outraged, but explain why.


> Participation in the FIBO development process is not restricted to
> participants from the financial industry, but is also open to ontologists
> from academia and other industries.
>


Best,
>
>
>
> David Newman
>
> Strategic Planning Manager
>
> Senior Vice President
>
> Enterprise Architecture and IT Strategy
>
> David.Newman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Office: (415) 801-8418
>
> Cell:    (925) 788-0529
>
>
>
> This message may contain confidential and/or privileged information.  If
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> message.  Thank you for your cooperation.
>
>
>
> *From:* ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:
> ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On Behalf Of *William Frank
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 14, 2014 12:56 PM
> *To:* [ontolog-forum]
> *Subject:* Re: [ontolog-forum] Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO)
>
>
>
> I wish words failed me, too.    But my outrage needs some words to go with
> it.
>
> I am **most** concerned not with how egregiously AWFUL this is, but what
> it means about the engineering culture in which this could occur.
>
> There are two disfunctional characteristics that seem to me to be at play
> here.
>
> 1.Standardize everything first, then use it later, if at all.   No more
> try before you buy.  Back in pre-history, things like SQL and C were
> introduced, adopted, then finally turned into standards.  Now, every time
> somebody has a new idea (or even, as in this case, seems to wish they were
> having an idea), the FIRST thing they do is to define a 'standard'.
>
> 2. Talk (or code) first, learn (or reuse) never.   This subject, as we
> here all love to yammer on about, has a history more than 2000 years old,
> about which lots has been learned.  So, the modern day experts on how to
> effectively stipulate what an ontology will mean by the term 'thing', as
> well as how to effectively construct defintions,  have a great deal of help
> from the shoulders on which they stand.   This so-called standard, on the
> other hand, is like a nightmare of jumbled words that might have popped up
> in the 2000 years of incremental improvement in our understanding of what
> is useful to cast as a 'thing', and when.
>
>
>
> I am sure the roots of these patterns are economic, as are the roots of
> most things, but  in the past few millenia of science and engineering,
> there have been many celebrated endeavors motivated by the desire to
> increase our understanding of things.  (or maybe, our understanding of
> "sets of individuals which are defined according the facts (properties)
> given for that kind of thing. ")
>
> Although unnecessary, I can't help but repeat Pat's quote from the
> standard and attack a few of its more obvious failings.   Here is what
> these people sponsored by the OMG and propose as a standard for the
> Financial Industry:
>
> "A Thing is defined as the set of individuals which are defined according
> the facts (properties) given for that kind of thing. "
>
> Well, in general, circular definitions are undesireable.
>
> So, they have the concept of individual, as a primitive from which Thing
> is constructed. So, presumably, individuals are NOT things.
>
>
> Second, they do not distinquish between facts and properties, suggesting
> that they will have a really hard time when it comes to dealing with the
> different meta types in the ontology.
>
> The capstone of the absurdity, though, is that in defining thing, they
> rely on, as part of the definition of thing, the concept of 'KIND of
> thing.'  How are we to know what a kind of thing is, before we know what a
> thing is?
>
>   Looking at this some more though, alot of the nonsense in the official
> semantics for the Unified Modelling Language seems to be embedded here, in
> that they seem to be making the same fallacy, that individuals and types
> are so entirely different in nature that we can't even talk about them in
> the same language.    Of course, the so-called 'semantics' of UML itself
> has the same disfunctional roots as this stuff does.   Lets make some money
> for our companies that make tools for O-O languages.
>
> No wonder ontology is not more widely respected, if this is the kind of
> stuff that happens.
>
>
> Wm
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> This is hopelessly confused. The technical part of it is nonsense. Just as
> a sample:
>
> "6.3.3.1 Thing
> A Thing is a set theory construct. This is shown on the diagrams as a box
> with a name. On some diagrams, additional
> textual entries in the box show the Simple Properties about that thing.
> A Thing is defined as the set of individuals which are defined according
> the facts (properties) given for that kind of thing. "
>
> Words fail me at this point. How is it possible for educated adult human
> beings to get themselves so unbelievably muddled over what should be one of
> the simplest ideas ever stated?
>
> Pat
>
>
>
> On Dec 14, 2014, at 12:40 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > A report on the FIBO project:
> >
> >
> http://edmcouncil.org/view/reports/20141121_FIBO_Report_to_Members.pdf
> >
> > See below for excerpts from the FIBO Semantics Repository Home Page.
> >
> > John
> > ___________________________
> >
> > Source:  http://www.edmcouncil.org/semanticsrepository/index.html
> >
> > This website provides a partial report of sections of the Financial
> > Industry Business Ontology (FIBO). This is being submitted to the Object
> > Management Group (OMG) as a set of proposed standard ontologies under
> > the FIBO umbrella. These FIBO OMG specifications are optimized for
> > semantic technology applications.
> >
> > Alongside these we are working to release the full canonical reference
> > ontology (as seen in these pages) as RDF/OWL...
> >
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> >
> >
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 21:50:22 -0500
From: Adrian Walker <adriandwalker@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Financial Industry Business Ontology
        (FIBO)
To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:
        <CABbsESeq-YytxG5ZD9Avc8m4prnVNYtOjKMqShoSbCUncJuT2g@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

William,

You wrote...

*Well, in general, circular definitions are undesireable*

Indeed, even though every dictionary of English uses them.

There's an approach to assigning useful meanings to English sentences that
escapes circularity by grounding to further sentences that are headings of
extensional data tables.  Paradoxically this works even if the meaning of a
sentence depends on itself recursively -- eventually it is grounded.

This approach is used in a running online system [1].  Here's an example
[2].

This is not yet proposed as a standard, so it hopefully conforms to your
prescription of use before standard writing.

Thanks for comments,    -- Adrian

[1]  Executable Open English / Internet Business Logic
Online at www.reengineeringllc.com
Shared use is free, and there are no advertisements

[2]  www.reengineeringllc.com/demo_agents/GrowthAndDebt1.agent
(There are many other examples in the same directory)


On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 3:56 PM, William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>
> I wish words failed me, too.    But my outrage needs some words to go with
> it.
>
> I am **most** concerned not with how egregiously AWFUL this is, but what
> it means about the engineering culture in which this could occur.
>
> There are two disfunctional characteristics that seem to me to be at play
> here.
>
> 1.Standardize everything first, then use it later, if at all.   No more
> try before you buy.  Back in pre-history, things like SQL and C were
> introduced, adopted, then finally turned into standards.  Now, every time
> somebody has a new idea (or even, as in this case, seems to wish they were
> having an idea), the FIRST thing they do is to define a 'standard'.
>
> 2. Talk (or code) first, learn (or reuse) never.   This subject, as we
> here all love to yammer on about, has a history more than 2000 years old,
> about which lots has been learned.  So, the modern day experts on how to
> effectively stipulate what an ontology will mean by the term 'thing', as
> well as how to effectively construct defintions,  have a great deal of help
> from the shoulders on which they stand.   This so-called standard, on the
> other hand, is like a nightmare of jumbled words that might have popped up
> in the 2000 years of incremental improvement in our understanding of what
> is useful to cast as a 'thing', and when.
>
> I am sure the roots of these patterns are economic, as are the roots of
> most things, but  in the past few millenia of science and engineering,
> there have been many celebrated endeavors motivated by the desire to
> increase our understanding of things.  (or maybe, our understanding of
> "sets of individuals which are defined according the facts (properties)
> given for that kind of thing. ")
>
> Although unnecessary, I can't help but repeat Pat's quote from the
> standard and attack a few of its more obvious failings.   Here is what
> these people sponsored by the OMG and propose as a standard for the
> Financial Industry:
>
> "A Thing is defined as the set of individuals which are defined according
> the facts (properties) given for that kind of thing. "
>
> Well, in general, circular definitions are undesireable.
>
> So, they have the concept of individual, as a primitive from which Thing
> is constructed. So, presumably, individuals are NOT things.
>
> Second, they do not distinquish between facts and properties, suggesting
> that they will have a really hard time when it comes to dealing with the
> different meta types in the ontology.
>
> The capstone of the absurdity, though, is that in defining thing, they
> rely on, as part of the definition of thing, the concept of 'KIND of
> thing.'  How are we to know what a kind of thing is, before we know what a
> thing is?
>
>
> Looking at this some more though, alot of the nonsense in the official
> semantics for the Unified Modelling Language seems to be embedded here, in
> that they seem to be making the same fallacy, that individuals and types
> are so entirely different in nature that we can't even talk about them in
> the same language.    Of course, the so-called 'semantics' of UML itself
> has the same disfunctional roots as this stuff does.   Lets make some money
> for our companies that make tools for O-O languages.
>
> No wonder ontology is not more widely respected, if this is the kind of
> stuff that happens.
>
>
> Wm
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 14, 2014 at 2:17 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> This is hopelessly confused. The technical part of it is nonsense. Just
>> as a sample:
>>
>> "6.3.3.1 Thing
>> A Thing is a set theory construct. This is shown on the diagrams as a box
>> with a name. On some diagrams, additional
>> textual entries in the box show the Simple Properties about that thing.
>> A Thing is defined as the set of individuals which are defined according
>> the facts (properties) given for that kind of thing. "
>>
>> Words fail me at this point. How is it possible for educated adult human
>> beings to get themselves so unbelievably muddled over what should be one of
>> the simplest ideas ever stated?
>>
>> Pat
>>
>>
>> On Dec 14, 2014, at 12:40 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> > A report on the FIBO project:
>> >
>> >
>> http://edmcouncil.org/view/reports/20141121_FIBO_Report_to_Members.pdf
>> >
>> > See below for excerpts from the FIBO Semantics Repository Home Page.
>> >
>> > John
>> > ___________________________
>> >
>> > Source:  http://www.edmcouncil.org/semanticsrepository/index.html
>> >
>> > This website provides a partial report of sections of the Financial
>> > Industry Business Ontology (FIBO). This is being submitted to the Object
>> > Management Group (OMG) as a set of proposed standard ontologies under
>> > the FIBO umbrella. These FIBO OMG specifications are optimized for
>> > semantic technology applications.
>> >
>> > Alongside these we are working to release the full canonical reference
>> > ontology (as seen in these pages) as RDF/OWL...
>> >
>> > _________________________________________________________________
>> > Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
>> > Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
>> > Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
>> > Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
>> > To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
>> >
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> IHMC                                     (850)434 8903 home
>> 40 South Alcaniz St.            (850)202 4416   office
>> Pensacola                            (850)202 4440   fax
>> FL 32502                              (850)291 0667   mobile (preferred)
>> phayes@xxxxxxx       http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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End of ontolog-forum Digest, Vol 144, Issue 11
**********************************************

--

Dennis E. Wisnosky

Senior Advisor - Consultant, Enterprise Data Management Council

Founder, Wizdom Systems, Inc.

CTO-CA (ret), DoD Business Mission Area

DWiz C 630-240-6910

Hope to see you at:

OMG Technical Meeting

December 8-12, 2014

Hyatt Long Beach, Long Beach, CA USA

WWW.EDMC.org

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