It seems to me that combining the two - object properties and
process properties - would be more realistic than separating them. It has been
common practice to separate them for so long we should at least review the
reasons why we don't, in practice, put them together.
In games, the objects go through state changes and also appear
to perform actions. Those would certainly be natural examples we could discuss
it that way. Starships, Klingons, Martians, ray weapons, shields, sick bay, Captain
Kirk, Scotty, the whole cast, the Conn, and all those objects could be used as
examples.
But isn't the idea to construct "Scriptive" ontologies,
i.e., task schedules, as stored or calculated, for each object? One purpose of
the historic separation was for partitioning the program, from the data tables,
so that the software could be generalized for use in wider application
domains. But that separation changes the design to ensure that an API for the
scheduler would be distinct from an API to the script tables manager - SQL or
NoSQL. Separating the two subsystems over the years has gradually made each subsystem
more general, more efficient at its subtask, and more complete in its treatment
of the combined System, both software and tables.
HTML is an example of scripted layout, and there is an ontology
of objects and operations that can be extracted from the various verbs and
nouns in HTML pages. HTML also separates out the verb parts from the
declarative parts, and the latest version is syntactically closed, so it's
hierarchical and very easy to parse. Yet it still maintains the separation of
objects from processes. Why is that the choice made instead of putting them
together? What would be gained or lost by integrating them?
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper,
Rich Cooper,
www DOT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
( 9 4 9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rrovetto@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2015 9:36 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Some Comments on Descriptive vs.
Prescriptive Ontologies.
Yes, but as far as I know there are no US-based
implementations. In a recent unpublished paper I submitted for journal review I
argued for the inclusion of these hybrid categories in existing applied
ontologies to better represent our processual world, but more work needs to be
done. This topic warrants it's own thread so if anyone cares to discuss
further, including brainstorming on alternatives, I suggest posting another
thread.
On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 12:31 PM, Rich Cooper <Rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Robert,
You
wrote:
However, one does not necessarily have to chose either the
process-ontology approach or endurantism. One can think outside of the box and
combine qualities of each. The task would then be to solve whatever
philosophical (or other) problems that arise in doing so. This has been
attempted, at least in philosophy. In fact describing physical objects as
slowly changing process is moving toward that attempt. Anyway, one need not
feel confined to the traditional distinction as if there were no alternatives.
One certainly not feel as if we could not create (or discover) alternatives!
Do
you have alternatives in mind that represent changing objects with both process
and object properties? It would be interesting to see some
examples.
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper,
Rich
Cooper,
www
DOT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
Rich
AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
( 9 4
9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2
Just a
quick note on a passage in this helpful thread (not intended to deviate from
the topic at hand, but important all the same)...
MW: "The problem I have with this insistence that
activities/processes/events are disjoint from physical objects is that it
requires two objects for (amongst other things) me, one for me as the physical
object, and another for the activity of my life. I’m with John S. (and some
others) who take a process approach, seeing physical objects as (relatively)
slowly changing processes."
I
agree with not being entirely fond of the traditional object-process
distinction as such. To me it does not seem to capture the fluid (so to speak),
processual-yet-persisting aspect of the world. However, one does not
necessarily have to chose either the process-ontology approach or endurantism.
One can think outside of the box and combine qualities of each. The task would
then be to solve whatever philosophical (or other) problems that arise in doing
so. This has been attempted, at least in philosophy. In fact describing
physical objects as slowly changing process is moving toward that attempt.
Anyway, one need not feel confined to the traditional distinction as if there
were no alternatives. One certainly not feel as if we could not create (or
discover) alternatives!
On
Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Dear Thomas,
To: Ontolog Discussion Group
From: Tom Johnston (new member)
[MW>] Welcome!
I would like to comment on the current discussion about SMEs and
ontologies.
(note: in the upper-level ontology I developed in my recent book
“Bitemporal Data: Theory and Practice” (Morgan-Kaufmann, 2014), objects and
events divide the world between them; they are exhaustive of what there is, and
nothing is both an object and an event. Objects come into existence, cease to
exist and, while they exist, change from one state to a successive state by
participating in events. I consider this the formalization of an upper-level
folk ontology which is the ontology common to all relational databases.
[MW>] That is not true, relational
technology is neutral in ontological commitments, except that it requires that
tables cannot themselves be instances of other tables. However, I accept many
relational databases adopt this commitment. The problem I have with this
insistence that activities/processes/events are disjoint from physical objects
is that it requires two objects for (amongst other things) me, one for me as
the physical object, and another for the activity of my life. I’m with John S.
(and some others) who take a process approach, seeing physical objects as
(relatively) slowly changing processes.
During the JAD sessions (see below), the initial statement of
requirements will be transformed into a different set of requirements that are
not simply the initial requirements stated in greater detail. The initial set
of objects, events and transformations will be similarly transformed as the BA
helps the SMEs realize (a) ambiguities inherent in their original statement,
(b) generalizations of their requirements that will do what they require but
also additional useful things; (c) restrictions on their requirements because
the current state of technology at the enterprise would make their satisfaction
unacceptably expensive; and (d) a sorting of initial requirements into do-now
and do-later categories, based on dependencies among the requirements, and on
the need to keep the project on-time and under budget (so both the BA and the
SMEs, whose names are most directly attached to the project, will look good to
their bosses when the whole thing eventually moves into production status).
[MW>] The challenge I find is in
validating the requirements (providing evidence to support them).
JAD: joint application development (a somewhat outdated term).
[MW>] I think SCRUM is the current
incarnation of this.
It is this: SMEs generally do not know what they are talking
about. To repeat: SMEs generally do not know what they are talking about.
[MW>] John made a similar point, and I
agree. I was too polite in my earlier post. In particular they generally don’t
know what they don’t know.
For anyone familiar with Plato's Socratic dialogues (early and
middle period dialogues), I can make my point like this: SMEs (Gorgias, Meno, Protagoras,
etc.) are the protagonists of Socrates (the BA) in those dialogues. Those SMEs
are the ones who profess to know something – about knowledge, justice, courage,
etc. Socrates engages each of them in a dialog which always ends with Socrates
demonstrating, usually by eliciting a contradiction from his protagonist, that
the SME actually doesn't know what he claims to know.
But there is one difference between Socrates and today's BAs.
Socrates is content (pleased, in fact, his protestations to the contrary) to
show that his protagonists don't know what they claim to know. Today's BAs,
however, cannot afford that luxury. Today's BAs must somehow guide her SMEs
from ignorance to knowledge, from vague, ambiguous, incomplete or otherwise
inchoate initial statements of what they want to a final statement which will
mediate between them and the developers who will implement their requirements.
One conclusion from all this is that the (ontologically-adept) BA
must take a very active role in eliciting and clarifying definitions of the
objects and events of concern to the enterprise. Her role must not be tidying
up around the edges of what the SMEs initial come up with as a requirements
statement. She must not use a light touch. She must challenge her SMEs as
aggressively as Socrates challenged the self-proclaimed experts he engaged
with.
[MW>] I agree.
Is there any additional guidance I can suggest, other than these
very general comments?
There is. I would like to suggest that before we begin eliciting ontological
commitments from SMEs, we should clarify (a) what we are defining, and (b) what
a definition is.
(3) What are we defining when we ask SMEs for definitions?
Let's take Customer as an example. In any enterprise, in any JAD
session, with any group of SMEs, when we ask “What is a customer?” (the same
“What is X?” question form as Aristotle's most basic ontological question, ti
esti?), surely we must be asking for something besides a dictionary
definition.
We don't need SMEs to formulate general definitions, whether they
are do-it-yourself dictionary definitions, or definitions defining nodes in a
taxonomy whose linearly parent nodes, up to the root node, have already been
defined. We are asking our SMEs what a customer of our enterprise is,
that is, what a customer of our enterprise in fact is, not what the SMEs think
a customer of our enterprise ideally should be.
[MW>] Yes. When I was talking about an
evidence based approach in my response to John, this is the kind of thing I was
meaning.
In any relationship of a set and its immediate superset, the
immediate superset defines a universe of discourse from which the members of
the set are chosen by means of that rule. For example, the set Customer will
have (whether represented as such in a database or not) as an immediate
superset the set Party, which we can think of as being the set of all those
individuals or organizations with which our organization engages in some way.
This immediately excludes from the universe of discourse for
Customer such things as dogs, cars, and also any persons or groups not able to
enter into a legal agreement (which a customer relationship is). Now, to define
what a customer of our enterprise is, all we need to do is to state the rule
which picks out a subset from that universe of discourse.
To accept a person or organization as a customer is to add a row
to the enterprise's Customer table representing that person or organization.
[MW>] I was once given as a definition
of “Customer” “One who is recorded in on the Customer table”. Accurate, but not
actually useful J
…a customer of our enterprise is – a subtype of a Party with whom
we have entered into a customer relationship, a relationship subject to conditions
stated in our policy manuals and implemented in our code.
Finding these definitions – which clearly can be done – is doing
something a lot more concrete than talking to a group of SMEs with the objective
of obtaining consensus definitions of such key terms as “customer”.
[MW>] <snip>
So we have steered away from the dragon of Wittgensteinian
definitions, and reached the safe fortress of Aristotelian definitions. To wit:
the category Customer (of enterprise X) is represented by a relational table
(hopefully named Customer, or something like it). A relational table is a set.
A set is a collection of set members drawn from a universe of discourse such
that the members of the set satisfy a specific set membership criterion. That
membership criterion is expressed in policy manuals, and in the rules expressed
in code that determine whether or not someone will be added to the Customer
table.
Prescriptive ontologies come into play, on my view, when our
objective is to construct higher-level ontologies, for example industry-level
ontologies. For these higher-level ontologies to play the role of facilitating
semantic interoperability across those industries, each enterprise subscribing
to the industry-level ontology must realize that their responsibility is not to
simply play lip service to the industry ontology. It is to begin the difficult
work of adjusting their de facto ontologies, including the set membership rules
for the sets represented as tables in their databases, so that those
lower-level ontological categories – the ones corresponding one-to-one with
their database tables, are consistent extensions of those higher-level
ontologies.
[MW>] I’ve developed this kind of ontology. It is not really
quite as you describe. Generally industry ontologies are about supply chain
integration, so they do not cover all of an enterprises data. What becomes most
important is to identify the subset of the industry model that is relevant to
your slot in the supply chain, and to be sure that you can map your enterprise
model into and out of those parts of the industry model. That has more
flexibility than a simple subset, your mappings may be from multiple tables, or
a subset of one of your tables. The other key is to be able to incorporate into
your data key industry level master data such as product categories and their
specifications.
This is the basic, boots-on-the-ground work that is required to
make prescriptive ontologies a reality. But the foundation from which we must
begin is what ontological commitments are in fact, right now, in place in
individual databases. The prescriptive work of integrating these de facto
low-level ontologies, however, is not simply a bottom-up process of supertyping
the types we begin with. It is a process of working with a well-developed
upper-level ontology as well as a set of de facto low-level ontologies,
combining top-down guidance towards an ideal goal with real-world realizations
of ontological categories that have been proven, over time, to actually work.
[MW>] Yes, but when you look at the commitments/rules imposed
by a database, you should also be questioning whether these are not imposed as
an implementation convenience (changing what are really many-to-many relationships
to one-to-many for example).
Perhaps this is something of a Manifesto – a description of a
research and a development program of work guided by strong theoretical
commitments and also a commitment to objects and processes that are time-tested
in the real world. I don't like the term “Manifesto”, simply because of its
creaky 19th century feel. But I am proposing that we clearly
distinguish descriptive from prescriptive ontologies, clearly recognize the
importance of descriptive ontologies, and begin to formalize them in the manner
described above.
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