That plus what should be processed by machines versus thought through by people (01)
Deb (02)
Sent from my iPhone (03)
On Jan 21, 2012, at 4:27 PM, Jack Park <jackpark@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: (04)
> I think that there are some very powerful insights emerging in this
> particular thread. For me, they edge ever closer to a boundary that
> interest me greatly:
>
> the boundary that separates machines from organisms.
>
> That boundary is the same one that frequently emerges in conversations
> that pit "reductionism" against holistic thinking.
>
> I don't see reductionism and holism as necessarily being so orthogonal
> that they get pitted against each other; as I see it, both are
> necessary, but neither is sufficient. Sure, that point alone is well
> worth its own conversation, but let me set that aside for a moment and
> tell a short springboard story.
>
> Nicholas Rashevski [1], considered the father of mathematical biology,
> wrote a paper "Topology and life: In search of general mathematical
> principles in biology and sociology" in 1954, which argued that for
> all the math he invented, we still don't understand what makes
> organisms tick. He launched the "relational biology" inquiry. He
> sought a way to represent a "canonical organism". His student Robert
> Rosen [2] eventually replaced Rashevski's graph and "organismic set"
> approaches with category theory, and later wrote the book _Life
> Itself_ which explains both the ontological and epistemological
> grounds for his canonical organism representation, which entailed two
> "components": metabolism and repair. Category theory showed that those
> two entailed reproduction. What is important in this is the
> observation that what is hard to represent are all of the necessary
> "relationships" that exist between and among the components, and with
> the external environment.
>
> I offer that story as a suggestion that special consideration needs to
> be given to relations. I will not suggest that more or less
> consideration be given when weighed against the components being
> modeled; I'll just leave it as a suggestion that relations in complex
> systems -- organismic systems -- are important. Rosen was not able to
> make graph or set theoretic approaches solve Rashevsky's quest;
> Rashevsky died before Rosen realized a candidate solution, one rooted
> in category theory.
>
> I read it somewhere that while set theory lets you talk about members
> of a set, category theory lets you talk about the social lives of
> those members. I'm not smart enough to validate that, just smile.
>
> JackP
>
> Jack
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Rashevsky
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rosen_%28theoretical_biologist%29
>
> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Deborah MacPherson <debmacp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> How to fix?
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 10:19 AM, Jack Ring <jring7@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> I suggest that this thread is beginning to highlight the absence of a
>>> general semantics (Korsybski, Peirce, Bickerton, etc.) facet of the Summit.
>>> The importance of this facet comes to the fore as big gets BIG then BIGGER.
>>>
>>> General systems theory and practice are an insufficent basis. In the
>>> traverse from a) an incorrect perception of a problem situation to z) the
>>> self-sustaining operation of an intervention system that is exemplary in
>>> quality, parsimony and beauty several languages will be used to express the
>>> transformations and orchestrations of the numerous knowledge vectors as they
>>> evolve.
>>>
>>> Better fix this now.
>>> Jack
>>>
>>> On Jan 21, 2012, at 7:28 AM, k Goodier wrote:
>>>
>>> Andrea,
>>>
>>> Your note is exactly the kind of dialog I was hoping to get started.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It brings up what I believe is an important distinction for applied
>>> ontology. In this case to engineered systems and to engineering of systems
>>> (meta-engineering). The distinction is between the application, the language
>>> used to talk about the application, and the specific knowledge (ontology)
>>> represented within the language. OWL2 is a perfect place to discuss some
>>> issues. OWL2 is not only an ontology language, but a formal ontology
>>> language, and has the virtue that it has good reasoners. Starting from this
>>> about 4 years ago I started looking at and attempting to use OWL2 for
>>> representing product requirements and product designs. This starts in a
>>> series of papers with among others Ian Horrocks, and David Leal. It clearly
>>> is very promising. However, I have found that it is insufficient to
>>> represent the semantics needed for concepts such as part-whole relations.
>>> Certainly, one can introduce binary properties and call them part
>>> properties. But the language without extensions is unable to do a good job
>>> of representing a lot of engineering concepts. I am sure the ontologists
>>> would concur. So for me it is not a question of throwing OWL out, it is what
>>> semantic concepts are needed, how to express their semantics, and extensions
>>> to OWL are needed. Also, by the way, as an engineer I have been very much
>>> involved with using SysML to describe large scale systems and their
>>> interaction with the world. I view SysML as an ontology language, albeit one
>>> without a formal semantics. I also have been very much concerned with
>>> retrofitting SysML with a formal semantics and adding OWL class and role
>>> constructions. All to be able to build suitable ontologies for engineered
>>> products and more recently biomedical systems such as the human heart.
>>>
>>> - Henson
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Westerinen, Andrea R. [mailto:ANDREA.R.WESTERINEN@xxxxxxxx]
>>> Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 12:06 PM
>>> To: Ontology Summit 2011 discussion; henson.graves@xxxxxxxxxxx
>>> Cc: Matthew West
>>> Subject: RE: [ontology-summit] Summit Engineering Tracks
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I have recently written a paragraph summarizing "why (OWL) ontologies?"
>>> for a customer. It tries to address some of the points that Henson raises
>>> below.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Here it is with the identifying text removed:
>>>
>>> Xxx requires the analysis, communication, comparison and [alignment]
>>> of [concepts] within and across authoritative tiers, addressing broad
>>> (high-level) to specific (low-level) enterprise environments. These
>>> requirements necessitate the creation of formal, semantically
>>> enabled models [of the concepts], and their identifying and supporting
>>> properties, relationships and individuals. Providing both a formal
>>> encoding and semantic richness allows normalization of the definitions
>>> (intent) and provides the ability to aggregate, compare, and reason over the
>>> [concepts]. These tasks and requirements are well-aligned to the goals and
>>> capabilities of an ontology-based approach. Ontologies, defined using W3C's
>>> OWL, can be created, stored and reasoned over using COTS tooling. In
>>> addition, many complementary supporting ontologies can be immediately
>>> imported, aligned and reused (such as the provenance and time/event
>>> ontologies from W3C, an ISO-3166 country ontology at downlode.org,
>>> and specific domain ontologies such as Xxx). Even if existing data is not
>>> in an ontological format, but is perhaps stored as a relational database,
>>> there is existing tooling to convert this data to an RDF encoding. (Taking
>>> this approach removes the need to use complex staging tables to mediate
>>> database information.) Using an OWL ontology as the basis for the Xxx Model
>>> allows the formalization of not only the core concepts (...) but also puts
>>> strong focus on the relationships between these concepts and the definition
>>> of formal-logic-based restrictions, facts/axioms, and rules. Using COTS
>>> OWL reasoners, logical analyses of the consistency, completeness and minimal
>>> set definitions are straightforward, along with the ability to align
>>> concepts and infer new data based on logical expressions and if/then (Horn)
>>> rules. Communication of a standardized, ontological, machine-understandable
>>> format [to environment-specific] translation agents will produce
>>> consistent, traceable and auditable definitions for specific end-point
>>> implementations.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Andrea Westerinen
>>> | SAIC - CISBU | Sr Technical Expert | westerinena@xxxxxxxx | bb
>>> 425-281-3611
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>>
>>> From: henson graves [mailto:henson.graves@xxxxxxxxxxx]
>>> Sent: Fri 1/20/2012 9:00 AM
>>> To: 'Ontology Summit 2011 discussion'
>>> Cc: 'Matthew West'
>>> Subject: [ontology-summit] Summit Engineering Tracks
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The track co-champions are soliciting input, participation, and
>>> references
>>> for the two tracks on engineering of large systems and the resulting
>>> engineered systems.
>>>
>>> My interest for the engineering tracks is to establish dialog in the
>>> Summit
>>> not only to identify engineering problems for which ontology can offer
>>> solutions. But to go beyond that to dialog on what ontology results and
>>> methodology can be applied and look at use cases for its application. Many
>>> people in the industry of developing and using engineered systems are
>>> aware
>>> that ontology may provide value to many of their problems and issues. But
>>> the industry position is what ontology technology can help, how do we use
>>> it, what are the benefits, and what will it cost. At least this has always
>>> been the management response when I have taken proposals regarding
>>> ontology
>>> forward in industry.
>>>
>>> If this did not go to the general interest list, someone give me a pointer
>>> to the right one.
>>>
>>> - Henson Graves
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ********************************************************
>>
>> Deborah L. MacPherson CSI CCS, AIA
>> Specifications and Research Cannon Design
>> Projects Director, Accuracy&Aesthetics
>>
>>
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