Re: [ontology-summit] Ontology Summit follow up - "Folksology"?

["Deborah MacPherson" <debmacp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for sending this Peter. Really interesting image selections and objectives in the slides [3] 
http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-04-25/MArditoKLynch04252007.ppt

If the disciplines working on defining and trying to solve this problem are as intertwined as the tree and root metaphor - why force distinctions between them? Rather, what purpose does it serve in the end to separate different (sorry to use this term...) approaches? 

If the purpose of identifying a new discipline is to be able to measure or otherwise indicate the levels of translation or formalization needed to evaluate, import/export, and integrate ontologies to accomplish what the authors Lynch and Ardito describe as "Stalking the Semantic Sweet Spot" - is the issue that a hybrid discipline needs its own name within the tangled knot? 

I think we will be forever merging and dividing the fields that tackle this problem over the next hundreds of years. Would it be simpler in the long run to cordon off and somehow signify basic levels of translation or formalization that need to consistently recognized up and down the spectrum regardless of user's special knowledge? Of course each area will eventually need a name but it seems like the bigger picture still needs to be clearer first. 

Debbie

*************************************************
Deborah L. MacPherson
Specifier, WDG Architecture PLLC
Projects Director, Accuracy&Aesthetics

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On 4/25/07, Peter F Brown <peter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Firstly, many thanks also to Peter Yim, our NIST hosts and everyone on the organising committee for a very successful meeting.

My immediate "takeaway" was that we seem to have made a significant breakthrough in finding a means of discourse between some very diverse disciplines and broadened all of our appreciations of the range and depth of work on ontologies.

Further, we need a different mindset to address the problem of capturing and encapsulating so-called "tacit knowledge" that goes beyond the limitations of the largely "transactional", process-driven approaches that are used today [1], even in many so-called "Web 2.0" applications.

For me, one of the most powerful ideas that came out was the need to have ontology definition as a permanently evolving and refining process rather than a single, static, designed artefact.

Switching domains this morning, to the Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice meeting [2] I have been already struck by the similarity of the discourse and the problems identified. One presentation already this morning [3] has used an image of the "Celtic Tree of Life" - with the roots nourishing the branches and vice-versa - to depict a major information architecture problem and this image seems to be a powerful metaphor of the need to work across all parts of the "spectrum" of ontologies from folkonomies up to highly formal ontologies.

Put the two together and maybe you get: Folksology. Could this be the new "discipline" that we all ought to master?

Regards,

Peter

[1] see, for example, "Interactive SOA - Towards content-centric services", http://www.oasis-open.org/events/symposium/2007/slides/Andrew-Townley.odp that I referred to at the Summit
[2] http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoPSpecialConference2_2007_04_25
[3] http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-04-25/MArditoKLynch04252007.ppt


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