Chris, (01)
I strongly endorse the idea of "core" ontologies along the lines
you describe. The kinds of things defined by them would include
units of measure and terminology about which there is little or no
debate. The only point I would quibble about is the term "core",
but I'll defer to whatever the organizing committee decides. (02)
CW> In the W3C, I used the OWL-Time work http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-time
> as an example of this, and its success has garnered some support for
> the idea of Core Ontologies. (03)
Times, dates, and the common ways of expressing them are essential for
a great majority of practical applications, and they are independent
of the debates about 3D vs 4D ontologies. (04)
Every branch of science, engineering, and business has standards bodies
that gather such data and develop a consensus on the names and basic
relationships. All of them should be in the registry/repository. (05)
The periodic table of the elements, for example, should be one of the
ontologies in the repository. It can be used by chemists, physicists,
pharmacists, etc., independent of any theory about the fundamental
nature of atomic particles. (06)
A registry/repository that contains a large collection of such
modules/theories/ontologies (or whatever anyone might call them)
would be immensely valuable. I strongly recommend that we *begin*
with assembling and organizing such modules. This might not be
as theoretically exciting as debating the upper level ontologies,
but it would provide a valuable service with immediate benefits. (07)
I would put the debates about philosophy, primitives, and upper
level architecture on the back burner, where they can simmer for
another 222 years -- while the people who have "day jobs" can
start using the extremely practical lower-level modules. (08)
John Sowa (09)
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