On Feb 23, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Uschold, Michael F wrote:
> [ChrisW wrote:]
>> The "degree of formalization" was the primary axis in all the
>> continua
>> (?) I've seen. This can be related to the language you use.
>> There is
>> not one "logic".
> --
>
> Probably so. It is important to note that it is not the only important
> factor/dimension. Another key one that is fairly orthogonal is the
> "amount of meaning specified" in an ontology. Some things called
> ontologies (e.g. a thesaurus, or a taxonomy) don't have much facility
> for expressing meaning. Also, you can take a simple informal ontology
> with little meaning specified, and represent it in a formal logic, and
> while it is in one sense unambiguous (from a formal model theory
> perspective) it is highly ambiguous from the perspective of real world
> meaning (i.e unintended models). The more meaning you have the fewer
> unintended models you have.
>
> ...
> Conversely, natural language is highly expressive and capable of
> capturing 'ontologies' that express a lot of meaning, even if the
> language is informal. (01)
I'd want to qualify that by noting that (as you know) the idea of
expressiveness vis-a-vis natural languages inherently has no precise
meaning, so it's a bit apples/oranges to talk about it in the same
breath with formal languages, where expressiveness can be spelled out
model theoretically in rigorous and precise terms. Ultimately every
ontology to which one hopes to apply computational tools to support
representation, sharing, re-use, and reasoning has to take the latter
form. (02)
-ChrisM (03)
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