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[ontolog-forum] What is ontological malpractice? (Was: Re: More by and a

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Steve Newcomb <srn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 11:55:49 -0400
Message-id: <55ABC885.1020700@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On 07/19/2015 07:33 AM, John F Sowa wrote:
> In *every* branch of science, engineering, medicine, law, etc., the 
> work by professionals in that field is the *gold standard*.    (01)

At the risk of generating more heat than light, I wish to point out that 
in every branch of information technology, there is vacuum where there 
should be something resembling the accounting industry's "Generally 
Accepted Accounting Practices" and certifications, or the many 
non-proprietary certifications for practitioners in the healthcare 
field, or the licensure processes required by many states to practice 
medicine, law, and engineering.    (02)

In the context of all this public-interest vacuum, it is not hard to 
explain the parlous state of the security of critical IT infrastructure, 
or the general engineering uproar we call the "World Wide Web", or the 
absurdity of consequential government webservers that won't accept any 
"secure" protocol other than one known to be insecure (TLS 1.0), not to 
mention the other craziness that all of us know, and that each of us may 
know.    (03)

In cases perhaps dearer to the hearts of readers of this mailing list, 
the lack of accountability for IT "professionals" can also explain the 
lack of economic and technical infrastructure whereby experts in 
multiple universes of discourse can work as tour guides and 
bridge-builders among them.    (04)

Turning now to my favorite hobby horse:  It is not enough to know how to 
build bridges between universes of discourse, or how to anchor the 
endpoints of such bridges on solid ontological foundations.  It is also 
necessary to build many, many instances of bridges, and to maintain them 
(when possible) across the ontological equivalent of hurricanes, 
earthquakes, and all other kinds of change.  That would entail creating 
the economic foundations of bridge-building, bridge-maintaining, and 
bridge-anchoring enterprises.  Such a knowledge-ecosystem would reward 
those whose opinions about what's what are measurably and publicly the 
most reliable for the most cases.    (05)

Individual multi-domain experts would, in fact, be playing fiduciary 
roles.  Such a scenario requires that a definition of malpractice be 
defined and maintained, so that the finger of blame can be pointed 
consequentially, whenever things go awry in some consequential fashion.  
It is up to ontologists to figure out how to make that meaningfully 
possible.  Nobody else has a prayer of doing it, and it's hard for me to 
imagine a more worthwhile endeavor.  It's also, obviously, a major 
project with major risks, and one that would be disruptive whether or 
not it succeeded.  Not for the faint of heart!    (06)

Steve Newcomb    (07)








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