----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Park" <jackpark@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Ontology Summit 2012 discussion" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 10:42 PM
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] ONTOLOGY OF BIG SYSTEMS: Large-scale
engineered systems vs. large-scale sociotechnical systems (01)
Azamat, (02)
Let me challenge, not as a criticism--more as a candidate segue into a
different conversation, something you said: (03)
> Finally, what makes the core mechanism of big systems, if it's nonlinear
> causality, manifested as the feedback mechanisms, or causal loops,
> positive and negative. (04)
I ask: (05)
Where in that world view do you account for, or represent, emergence? (06)
AA: Self-organization and emergence are parts of complex systems, the
systemic effects of nonlinear causality, when small changes can have large
effects whereas large changes can result in small effects, and the whole is
more than the parts, when the beating of a butterfly's wings unleashes the
hurricane on the other part of the globe.
All self-organizing systems are complex system, but not vice versa.
The matter's been ventilated:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2011-08/msg00103.html (07)
Where does that world view account for life itself, other than, say,
as an emergent property of mechanisms associated with zillions of
chemical reactions? (08)
AA: It's about self-organizing and self-producing (autopoietic) living
things interacting with the environment, about organic networks of
feedbacks, negative and positive.
Although, the mechanisms of virtual/artifical life look simpler to reverse
engineer.General living systems ontology for how all living systems work is
looking for its champions. (09)
My own thought is that the very term "mechanism" doesn't belong in
conversations about "systems" which cannot be defined as machines. (010)
AA: it's too narrow. In a broad sense, "mechanism" is to cover "organism",
"virtualism", all kind of systems, natural and artificial, living and
nonliving, social and technological, etc. (011)
That, of course, is another subject, one well worth its own
conversation. (012)
Perhaps I am asking a different question: what are the limits of
ontology engineering as we presently understand and practice it? (013)
AA: It closely depends on how one sees ontology, its scope and scale, and
application fields: if it's about pieces of reality (entities and
relations), conceptual representations (knowledge systems), or languages
(terminology, vocabulary). Three-in-one is a sure way to achieve. (014)
JackP (015)
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:11 PM, AzamatAbdoullaev
<abdoul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> First, kudos to those who suggested the Ontology Summit topic.
>
> Big Systems, or Systems of Systems, are vitally important to study as far
> as
> the world is rapidly globalizing, becaming increasingly unpredictable and
> volatile, as well as complex and interconnected.
> It'd be of good use to define some guidlines and general principles to be
> discussed on the Ontology Summit.
>
> Broadly, we see two strands: Systems Science and Ontology of Systems.
> Systems theory considers the world as a complex system of interconnected
> parts.
> The System Ontology views the world as the ultimate megasystem, the
> metasystem of heterogenous systems, the unified whole of parts and
> relations. Then, accordingly, a city is to be viewed as the urban system
> of
> systems, or networks of transportation, utilities, telecommuications,
> buidings, services, etc.
> The Systems Theory divides the domain into a triple of system, boundary
> and
> environment, stressing the following features as the common ones: domain,
> structure (elements and composition), behavior (inputs, outputs and
> processing), interconnectivity (structural and functional relationships),
> and functions (processes).
> There are many critical issues needing ontological analysis: how to
> define environment from the system itself; how to determine the boundary,
> what the big systems are; open and closed systems; natural and artifical
> systems, physical and virtual systems, or mixed systems, as sociotechnical
> systems or cyberphysical systems. If they are large-scale nonlinear
> systems,
> and if all real system are just complex causal systems.
> Finally, what makes the core mechanism of big systems, if it's nonlinear
> causality, manifested as the feedback mechanisms, or causal loops,
> positive
> and negative.
>
> As an example, following the systems theory, Garry's made a rather
> interesting description of a natural system of wetland, while the
> specialist's analysis is more real, or ontological:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetland. Its about nature, meanings,
> definitions, classifications, properties, interractions, etc.
>
> Azamat Abdoullaev
>
> http://www.eis.com.cy
>
> (016)
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