> [Against my better judgement, I enter the fray] (01)
Rash fellow. (02)
> Chris-
>
> An erudite argument, as usual. But here is a logical theory:
>
> (forall (x) (if (P x) (Q x)))
> (P a)
>
> This is the kind of logical theory you find all the time as
> examples in papers by
> logicians and by computer scientists who study properties of
> logical languages and
> algorithms for reasoning. They don't give a hoot for what it means
> (what it refers
> to) - it is an *example* of a bit of logical syntax that lets me
> prove something
> about P, Q, and a. (and, in fact, if you ask them what P means,
> they will say "what
> difference does it make?")
>
> Accepting ontology == logical theory trivializes ontology, IMHO. (03)
Yes, it trivializes the *word* in order to get folks to focus on
*quality* -- it's so much more productive to focus on what's good/bad/
right/wrong about an ontology than to try to figure out some way of
throwing a semantic fence around JUST the right logical theories that
deserve the honorific title. Dude, it's a waste of time! (04)
> It is exactly the
> kind of thing I find myself fighting against time and time again.
> It is the reason
> the FOIS conference exists. I think its worth it to try and come
> up with something
> better. (05)
Really, Chris, is THAT what you're fighting? Aren't you fighting
*bad* ontologies and *bad* ontological engineering? Give folks the
word and teach them how to create *good* ontologies -- by example, by
isolating general, qualitative principles of good practice, etc. (06)
> When writing standards, you can make use of words like "must"
> "should" and "may" to
> convey less-than-perfect definition. (07)
But the problem, by my admittedly dim lights, is that you won't get
anything like definition at all. The idea of writing a standard for
a notion of "ontology" that builds in vaguely specified qualitative
features is like the idea of writing a standard for composing good
music. It's a category mistake; we're not talking about a definable,
standardizable thing here (at least, not in any useful sense).
Standards can and should be written for things like logical languages
and musical notation. Beyond that it's a matter of teaching/learning
good practice. People start out writing bad music, but it's music
all the same. (08)
ChrisM (09)
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