Dear Tom,
Thanks for the reference to the Winograd et al work Understanding
Computers and Cognition. I managed to find this 60 page pdf review of it
here:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.32.3411&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Amazon doesn't offer a kindle edition, and the paperback costs
$26 which is discouraging, but if I see it in a bookstore, I will definitely
give it a overview read.
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper,
Rich Cooper,
Chief Technology Officer,
MetaSemantics Corporation
MetaSemantics AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
( 9 4 9 ) 5 2 5-5 7 1 2
http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Thomas
Johnston
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2015 11:17 AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology based conversational interfaces
So it would seem that
knowing these details, one could write a requirements doc about how the conversational
interface would help people deal with these tendencies.
If a lot of work has been
done in a field, it's best not to work out your own theories without knowing
something about that work. Watching a talk by one guy from Duke, and then
talking about writing a specification, is like undergraduates in a Philosophy
class who read selections from Descartes' Meditations, and then write term
papers in which they solve the mind-body problem.
On the topic of a
"conversational interface", I recommend:
Terry Winograd and Fernando
Flores. Understanding Computers and Cognition, especially Chapter 5,
"Language, Listening and Commitment", which takes a speech act
approach to understanding how agreement can be reached in conversations.
There is also a great deal of
relevant work on Paul Grice's rules of conversational implicature.
Also there is a lot of recent
work on the topic of discourse representation theory. What should be
interesting about that work, to ontology engineers, is that it is about
creating a formal logic representation of the process by which participants in
a conversation begin with a set of assumptions, discover that some of them are
not shared by others and that some of them are, discuss the ones that are not
shared, and so on and so on. As time passes in the conversation, a set of
shared assumptions builds up. At the conclusion of the conversation, the shared
assumptions worked out and agreed to can be called a "mini-theory"
that the participants agree on. And its conclusions are expressed in a formal
framework, something that ontology engineers could go to work on.
In Chapters 5, 6 and 19 of my
Bitemporal Data: Theory and Practice, I extend Grice's rules to the processes
of inserting, updating and deleting data in databases, and to the querying of
those databases by people looking for information. I also introduce speech acts
as essential to the third temporal dimension I define in that book.
I think of my work in that
book, and also of the new work on discourse representation, as providing detail
and formalization to what Winograd and Flores wrote thirty years ago.
To return to the point I
began with: useful work in any non-trivial area of research very seldom comes
from those who know little or nothing about what other serious researchers have
already discovered and formulated. (Aristotle and Plato are exceptions that
prove that rule.)
Becoming conversant in a
field of research is hard work. I'm in the process of extending my pretty good
knowledge of ontology to ontology engineering, i.e. to the combination of
ontology and logic that distinguishes this work from classical ontology. But
spending a few hours, or even days, or even weeks and months, getting up to
speed in any non-trivial area of research, is at best barely enough to let you
catch the jist of what serious researchers have written.
We all like "bull
session" kinds of conversations, the ones that flow best face-to-face,
usually late at night and after a few beers. In those conversations, there's no
need to distinguish informed from uninformed talk about "deep stuff"
like Reality, Mind, Language, Thought, Concepts, Relativism, Skepticism,
Reductionism and Verificationism.
But like John, Pat, Leo and
some of the others in this forum most of whom have worked hard enough to not
only have PhDs in related fields of study, but who have continued to deepen
their understanding of their fields of study through a lifetime of work, I feel
that bull session, "I don't know anything about Kant but I do know about
Reality, Concepts, Objectivity, etc" conversations are not appropriate in
this forum. Maybe on LinkedIn; but not here.
This is not to disparage
anyone's interest in anything that requires hard work to master. But when
uninformed people go on and on about these topics, in a forum supposedly
devoted to serious conversations, it seems to me to show a real lack of respect
for the hard work that the more informed among us have put in. It's like a
freshman in a Philosophy 101 class trying to take over the class with a
discussion of his "philosophy of life".
Let everyone here take part
in conversations. In peer-reviewed journals, that freedom doesn't exist, and
the consequences of that restriction are sometimes unfortunate. In open forums,
like Linked In, it's the opposite -- a free-for-all, an on-line bull session.
That has value as social and professional networking, but also, frankly, as a
place for poseurs to pretend to knowledge and expertise they don't have -- and,
usually, that they aren't even aware they don't have.
I think that the ideal role
for the Ontolog Forum is as a balance of these opposites. Something like a
graduate seminar, or at least like the best of them I have attended. Graduate
students in seminars are expected to engage in serious conversations. But if
the professor has the expertise he should have to be teaching the seminar, each
student's contributions to that conversation, to that symposium (which was
originally a drinking party!), should be expressed as clearly and completely as
possible, but with acknowledgement of the professor's expertise and acceptance
of his role as the most informed participant in the conversation. Acknowledging
the professor (or professors', sometimes) role leads to a certain kind of
behavior on the part of the students. And that behavior is not the behavior of
going and on, session after session, as though anything the professor(s) had
said had never been said.
Intellectual humility is a
virtue. It's not the virtue of trying to convince yourself that you don't know
anything. But it is the virtue which recommends listening more than talking
when more informed people than yourself are willing to participate.
I do wish this forum were
more like a graduate seminar than a bull session.
With apologies for writing
what may be offensive, but which I think needed to be said,
On Wednesday, July 8, 2015 5:03
PM, Rich Cooper <metasemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dan Ariely is a Duke Prof
who explains the evidence about how people make decisions under various
conditions. This is his talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGL_CWHP78Y
So it would seem that
knowing these details, one could write a requirements doc about how the conversational
interface would help people deal with these tendencies.
Chief Technology Officer,
MetaSemantics Corporation
MetaSemantics AT
EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 1:19 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology based conversational interfaces
That's a constructive
suggestion you made:
JFS: One of the few instances
in which he says "the world" could be replaced by the phrase
"planet earth" without changing the point:
"Much
of our experience of the world comes from inside our brains."
I don't particularly like
stipulating that "planet earth" captures the concept, but since you
don't like the word "world", let's not put in any substitution at all
for the main point: its "objective reality" we should put there:
"Much
of our experience of objective reality comes from inside our
brains."
Perhaps that will fly.
Is it OK with you? Does anyone else object to the verbalities?
It's a reference to the
stored experiences of reality, in our memories, from deep within our earliest
sensations, which were the closest we could ever get to objective reality,
until now. In the duration, we have become more and more biased in our
particularly chosen directions.
Chief Technology Officer,
MetaSemantics Corporation
MetaSemantics AT
EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
http://www.EnglishLogicKernel.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2015 12:36 PM
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology based conversational interfaces
Many years ago, I learned
that if some word is a cause of many confused and confusing arguments, it's a
good idea to *banish* that word from the discussion.
> What is common, what is
world? That, too, is a matter of stipulation
Yes, indeed. For that
matter, the *only* precise meaning for the word is "planet
earth". Everything else is an extended use or metaphor that varies
from one context to another.
Recommendation: In
every occurrence of that word in this thread, replace the word 'world' with a
word or phrase with a narrower meaning. If you mean planet earth, say
so. If you mean world view (or German Weltanschauung) say so.
> U.S. Republicans and
Democrats, like the political parties of other
> major “democracies”,
must agree on a “common world”
> (universe of discourse)
in order to communicate and legislate.
Politics is an example where
a huge number of problems are created by the choice of words. All the
parties could agree much more quickly if they avoided words such as 'freedom',
'amnesty', 'religion', 'conservative', 'liberal', 'socialist', 'extremist'...
Successful politicians are
not stupid. They don't use those words when they're talking one-to-one
with no cameras around. But as soon as the cameras are turned on, the
discussion turns to mush.
> Dan Ariely explains some
of the reasons why we see different worlds:
>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y0w5EJC9o0
That's a good talk. But
Dan A. does *not* use the word 'world'.
I took some notes, and he
uses narrow, precise terms:
"How
would you design an experiment?"
"How
do you classify experience?"
"The
brain is filtering information in a biased way."
One of the few instances in
which he says "the world" could be replaced by the phrase
"planet earth" without changing the point:
"Much
of our experience of the world comes from inside our brains."
Recommendation to Rich:
You have been creating a huge amount of confusion in this thread by using the
word 'world' in a hopelessly vague way. If you want to continue
discussing the topics in this thread, please *stop* using that word.
If you need help, go back to
Dan A's talk and take notes on which words he uses.
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