Although this is dangerous ground and may provoke another PLEASE, PLEASE
outcry: (01)
While ontology without doubt serve as a map between natural languages and
artificial languages they also serve as a map between artificial languages.
As the series chaired by Matthew West demonstrates, the use of ontological
means to semantically align the different abstractions of reality (a.k.a.
models) underlying the different information systems supporting the
decision process is a necessary application domain. As such, ontologies
serve as a common information exchange coordinator between artificial
languages and represent the decision makers information request and his
view of the world to access this heterogeneous information collective. (02)
In summary:
(1) Ontology serves as a map between natural languages and artificial
languages for information (or knowledge) access.
(2) Ontology serves as a map between heterogeneous artificial languages to
enable homogenous decision support based on heterogenous information
infrastructures by enabling semantically aligned exchange of information
(or knowledge). (03)
Andreas
============================== ;-)
Andreas Tolk, Ph.D.
Associate Professor/Engineering Management & Systems Engineering
Old Dominion University (04)
ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 03/06/2007 10:28:43 AM: (05)
> Steve,
>
> That is certainly true:
>
> > ... don't forget that the question is really "can we define
> > a scale within which one can place true ontologies, thesauri,
> > folksonomies, etc.?". To answer that, we MAY have to answer
> > "what is an ontology".
>
> Not only "may", but "must".
>
> My answer to the question is that an ontology serves as a map
> between natural languages and artificial languages.
>
> That puts type hierarchies at the center, with links to
> NL lexical resources such as WordNet on one side and
> links to implementations such as Cyc on the other side.
>
> And by the way, I *detest* the word "folksonomy". First of all,
> the word "folk" implies some derogatory or deprecating attitude.
> Yet some of those things embody more insight into the issues
> than some of the things that use a formal notation.
>
> For any resources that we use or analyze, I suggest that we adopt
> the terminology that their developers use to characterize them.
> I don't know of anybody who calls their own work "a folksonomy".
>
> John
>
>
>
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