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Rich, I agree that almost any two people will eventually differ on some conceptual point or other, sometimes quite soon. I have a collection of amusing anecdotes from working on CYC where this kind of thing happened. But the philosophical debates about endurantism versus perdurantism seem to be at a higher (?deeper?) level than this kind of variation, and have proven to be a stubborn problem in many domains. Every position on this higher-level debate comes with a huge freight of philosophical authority and argument, which makes it almost impossible to resolve. Each side believes itself to be right with the force of a religious commitment. Entire ontological engineering efforts have taken one or another position on this matter and welded their positions into formalisms and software, making cooperation very difficult. Something seems to be wrong here: if this were a real difference about the structure of the actual world and this centrally important, then it would be an issue in physics; and it isn't. I have suspected for a long time that it had to be basically an artifact of a limitation of our usual formalisms, and I think I can now show that.
Pat Rich Cooper <Rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> , 3/17/2015 2:15 PM:
Dear Amanda,
You wrote:
Yes, but more than that. In addition, the actual logic allows each point of
view to be expressed in ways that 'natural' for it, and appropriate conclusions
drawn within that point of view, and yet both POVs can use the same vocabulary
and be not only mutually consistent (in the strict logical sense) but even
interderivable from one another, given appropriate linking axioms. So a
conclusion stated in one style can be interderivable with the same conclusion
stated in the other style.
While that is true, it should also be that SMEs 1 and 2 would
describe a slightly different view, using slightly different vocabulary, not
only in the orthogonal sense of logic for different views, but in the sense of
the reasoning each uses to customize the individual history with that semantic
belief of 1, versus that semantic belief of 2.
In every KE project I have worked on, conducted or been involved
with, there are subtle differences in world view of each participant. If they
got to freely discuss and debate wherever problems arose, it could get intense,
but it worked more smoothly than the sweat shop management method. If the manager
or customer determined a highly detailed work plan without discussing it with KEs
in the same detail, the plan would be very unstable, with lots of unanticipated
problems that vary by the week.
So requiring a single POV's vocabulary to match another's simply
hasn't worked historically. Therefore, I expect each claim in a patent to have
a unique vocabulary beyond the claim construction vocabulary. So far, they do,
and by experience I know that the crucial issues will be decided over those
words and phrases that are not standard. Each claim represents one POV as
specified, edited, reviewed, and ultimately issued.
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 Amanda
Vizedom
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2015 11:19 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Endurantism and Perdurantism - Re: Some
Comments on Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Ontologies
Comment below.
On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 1:46 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mar 17, 2015, at 2:24 AM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Dear Pat,
> It seems to me you are saying that the data elements that you need to talk
> about what is true at a time and change over time are the same for the
> different views of how the world is.
Yes, but more than that. In addition, the actual logic allows each point of
view to be expressed in ways that 'natural' for it, and appropriate conclusions
drawn within that point of view, and yet both POVs can use the same vocabulary
and be not only mutually consistent (in the strict logical sense) but even
interderivable from one another, given appropriate linking axioms. So a
conclusion stated in one style can be interderivable with the same conclusion
stated in the other style.
> I agree. If you are to provide an
> adequate description of however the world is from different view points, I
> think that must be so even. If not the different views would not work, and
> would be dismissed. The problem is that the different views are workable,
> rather than demonstrably wrong.
> However, I don't think that a data format that obfuscates the different
> views helps. It does not make the different views the same somehow, it
just
> demonstrates some level of equivalence. Equivalence is not the same as
> compatibility.
Indeed, but one gets actual compatibility from this style of axiomatization.
(Well to be very careful, there are things that can only be stated in one
framework, but nothing can be done about that.)
Pat
Yes, and more than that: The approach Pat describes
does not "obfuscate the different views." Having sufficient
expressiveness and logical features allows one to represent very many things as
seen from both + perspectives. If you are working on a project for which it is
useful to have that flexibility, it is very, very likely that it will also be
useful to *capture*, that is *model* the different views more or less
explicitly. You will also want not only model-parts that let you convert
between the two, but inference support that actually does this, and easily.
Having these things is very useful in enabling multi-modal,
multi-directional, and flexible interaction between an ontological knowledge
base and (a) people, (b) varied systems, and (c) complementary sub-systems such
as NLP that have their own internal representation and can be used more
efficiently if they can interact with the knowledge base's contents in a
particular form. In other words, such flexibility, with explicit
(non-obfuscated) axiomitization of various models and relationships between
them, enables a wider variety of applications, guis, and systems to work with
the same ontology / knowledge base, each interacting with the knowledge
(semi-)normalized to the form most conducive to that interaction.
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