At 4:45 AM -0400 3/20/08, Barry Smith wrote:
>At 12:57 PM 3/20/2008, Pat Hayes wrote:
>>At 9:03 AM -0400 3/20/08, <phismith@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>On Thu Mar 20 2:34 , "John F. Sowa" sent:
>>>
>>>>For any product, including an ontology, the best recommendations are
>>>>the reviews and reports from users that are recorded in the metadata.
>>>>As the reviews accumulate, prospective users can decide for themselves
>>>>which ontologies are best suited for their purpose(s).
>>>
>>>I think democratic ranking (the wisdom of crowds) is indeed valuable for
>>>refrigerators and other similar products. Hence the success of
>>>ranking systems on
>>>eBay and amazon.com. But it is surely of less importance in
>>>scientific contexts
>>>-- we would not decide on which interpretation of the equations of quantum
>>>physics to accept by taking a vote of users. Since the OBO Foundry
>>>ontologies are
>>>built by scientists, to support scientific research, it is not
>>>clear that they
>>>are to be treated as products.
>>
>>This is where I part company with Barry, and indeed where I believe
>>that the very idea of controlling the contents of an OOR (noting
>>that the first O means 'open') needs to be examined very, very
>>carefully. Of course we would not argue that majority voting should
>>be used to choose scientific theories; but ontologies, even those
>>used by scientists, are not themselves scientific theories. The OBO
>>Foundry is quite clear, in its own documentation, that the basic
>>ontological assumptions on which it is based are ultimately
>>philosophical decisions, not scientific ones.
>
>The actual work of the Foundry in maintaining its ontologies is 50%
>of the time focused on getting the science right. I think this
>percentage will rise, as the ontologies themselves become more
>mature. (01)
Fair enough. I do however see a lot of email traffic devoted to
questions of which things have to be put into which philosophical
categories. I don't accept that calling something a continuant is
doing science. (02)
>> Such assumptions most emphatically do not have the force of a
>>scientific theory, even when the ontologies constructed according
>>to them are being used by scientists.
>
>So anything goes, eh? (03)
Not necessarily. (It is revealing, I think, that you seem to think
that anything other than kosher science is anarchy.) (04)
>>And any such implication of 'scientific' authority must be examined
>>especially carefully when the, er, foundry is controlled by the
>>philosophers themselves
>
>One philosopher, one computer scientist, two computer
>scientist-biologists, one immunologist, one world-class geneticist.
>
>>, and its gatekeepers are mandated to only allow ontologies which
>>conform to the somewhat arbitrary philosophical views of its
>>founders (for example, by requiring consistency with a single
>>'base' ontology).
>
>Actually not -- the single base ontology we started with has already
>been modified because it did not fit the science. (05)
I applaud that kind of a move, but it does not really counter my
point. Would you allow an ontology which explicitly denied the
continuant/occurrent distinction? (06)
>> I do not mean this to be a criticism of OBO itself, but I do claim
>>that OBO hardly qualifies as anything like an "open" ontology
>>repository. In the contrary, in fact: it is quite firmly closed to
>>an entire approach to ontology construction which, while
>>successfully deployed elsewhere, happens to not conform to the
>>philosophical views that Barry has so nobly defended in so many
>>publications.
>
>No one, I think, is suggesting that all the criteria applied for
>admission to OBO should be applied also to OOR -- just some of them;
>the obvious ones (see earlier emails). (07)
I think many of them are far from obvious. (08)
>If, as you say, you will in any case put your ontologies on the web,
>then I suppose for you the criteria to be applied are: correct html
>(perhaps not even that). (09)
Hardly html. Correct RDF/OWL, yes. BUt I take your implied
meta-point: if we have the Semantic Web to publish openly in, why do
we need an 'open' repository (in the sense of being unrestricted) at
all? Yes, a good point. I think we draw opposite conclusions from
this as a rhetorical point, however. (010)
>>>While refrigerator manufacturers may allow
>>>democratic ranking to influence e.g. size and color, they would use other
>>>strategies e.g. in matters of thermodynamics.
>>
>>Perhaps so: but we are here discussing matters of ontology, and in
>>the current state of the art, this may have more in common with
>>consumer product choice than with thermodynamics.
>
>This thing:
>http://www.gnowsis.org/ont/kissology.html
>was admitted into the http://www.schemaweb.info/ repository of RDF schemas.
>Do we want its OWL brother to be admitted to OOR? (011)
I see no reason why not. Ignore the poetry, and all it does it
provide a simple way to annotate an image to indicate that it shows
two persons kissing (on a certain date), a tiny extension to the foaf
ontology (which is widely and successfully deployed). There are real
uses for such annotations, even if you aren't interested in them. (012)
Pat (013)
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