So, as the flow is slowing, I feel that I can give a quite lengthty contibution,
as Peter Yim and Matthew West invited me, after I sent it as attached file !
Find it below :
Dear Friends,
If anyone wants me to introduce myself and give my background, just ask !
For example, today 01/31 at 17h I am just back from a “Post-doctorate Seminar” about “Hazard in Biology” at “Centre Cavaillès in “Ecole Normale Supérieure”” in Paris, and we discussed about “What Hazard, Alea, Chance, …, can be, then mean, in Biology ?”.
As often quoted in discussions, the Tracks are overlapping, then by now, I just send to Peter Yim this Text. I hope he will let it the best way !
The first President of the AFSCET, the French Systemics Association to be short, (of which I am in the “Administration Concil”) ;
often, said : “I am suspicious about ontologies”.
But he always started discussion by definitions !
And I will follow him, by several ways !
Someone, namely Sjir Nijssen, suggested to develop an “Ontology of Ontology”, thru a Frame as he gave his “Famous Composers” example.
I agree with Matthew West, it was ill design.
But, we say in France “Shoemakers are often the most badly fitted in shoes” !
The best Tool for Ontology must be the one which will, as I feel, first help Us to Define Ontology !
Mr Mehl, our first President, as I said, defined Words, then the Things they are representing, first, by Etymology.
So, Ontology is built from the Greek “Oôn”, “Ontos”, which means “Being”, “Entity”, and what a specialist of Greek can add.
And “Logos”, as “Discourse”, “Talk”, and, mainly, here for our purpose, “Science”, but again, also several other equivalents, said for accepted meanings to be “synonyms”.
Immediately, it says to Us that an Ontology should be the same, whatever the Language used to describe it can be.
Then trying to Translate, as I do now, here from French into English, but it would be even more in Chinese, is a good criteria of the Quality of any “Thought” !
I will, about the Scientific way to Build Ontologies, Such as Physicists do, go back later on the Point of Universal Acceptation required.
It is an “Abstraction”, a Concept, not what Me, Him or You think, but What Science Says.
So, Scientists are meeting in Congress, and, here as we do, have “Consensus Conferences”, as we try here for “Ontology”.
And, We are supposed to be World Specialists Bench to Define Ontology, as Astronomers for what a “Planet” is, or Electricians for “Electricity” !
Some are saying they don’t want “Philosophy”, but the Philosophers have much more experience in the field than “Programmers” and “Developers”, as high as could be their “Computer Science” ! About 2400 Years more !
Of course, we are in Logic as in Metaphysics, much far away than Aristote !
And it must be recognized that Computer Sciences and Algorithm, Proof Finders and Reasonners are Tools we cannot escape from !
Ontology is Mental Work, Speculation, but I will not yet ask You to study the German Philosophers who Defined : “Self”, “Itself”, “In Itself”, “For Itself”, “In-and-For Itself”, and so on !
“Being”, “Existing”, are already difficult enough to define !
But, Describing by “Tree Files” as suggest “OWL” is not enough, even with Tridimensional Graphs ! Meanwhile, I sent such a file for “Systemics” and “System” !
For example, an “Entity” can be, as some said, a “Thing”, an “Object”, and, more, a “Being”. With, then, :
– Predicates, Qualities, described in Fields of Factual Data to be Declared by Statements in Knowledge Bases; and, from “Objects” to “Living Peoples”,
– Behavior, with Rules, Procedure, and so on.
From “Simple Idea”, “Notional Idea”, “Conceptual Idea”, it can be believed that there is continuity, then synonymy. But when we Define “Concept”, we must State that a Constituting Division, a Specific Difference, here Formalism, exist between “Notion” and “Concept” !
Ontology is, must, should at least, be, here, obviously, for our Tasks, Formal.
If, for example, I say to You : « I am working to build the Algebraic Topology of Mental Items », everyone will immediately think : “I understand what « Mental Items » are, but, what about « Algebraic Topology » ?” !
So I must say that “Algebraic Topology” is, in a way, a “General Graph Theory” to be a bit more understandable.
I sacrifice the truth of « Algebraic Topology », for the sake of intelligibility !
It is quite a good idea to make Tracks for “Intrinsic” vs “Extrinsic” Aspects !
Truly, Ontology should deal, as what I said before show, only about Intrinsic Properties.
But we must acknowledge that, practically, it would be useless without a “Contextual” representation !
For example, ISO TR9007 is as far as I know have been the Deliverable of a great Effort from the Highest Specialists in the world about the Topic !
Matthew West gave quite a good Model of What an Ontology can be, and Ontology can also be understood as a Computable Model, such as used un “Expert Systems” !
Why not trying to set a “Common “*.owl” file, (Ontology.owl !), (or with another similar Graph Description Language), and Share it for comments ?
If not already a Data and Rules Base for a Software able to say “This is an Ontology”, or “This is not an Ontology”, or, and it is very important, “What you say can or cannot be an Ontology, but Humans must give more elements !”.
I cannot rightly now go to read ISO 15926, nor ISO 24744, but if I can next time, I will do.
To end this already, (but I have a flow running to follow !), too long “letter”,
I must say, as several said, “Ontology”, (as I say for Systemics), is, like Medecine,
As much Art as Science.
But, Methodology, originally, means that not only “Way” (“Odos”) is enough by itself, and “going out usual path”, (“Meta”), is here compulsory for “Complete”, even we assume just for the sake of “Consistency”, Exploration of Existing Domains needed to Work on the Topic !
Sincerely.
Eric Beaussart.
> Message du 30/01/13 15:14
> De : "Matthew West"
> A : "'OntologySummit2013discussion'"
> Copie à :
> Objet : Re: [ontology-summit] {quality-methodology} General Comments
>
>
Dear Eric,
Welcome to the list and thank you for your contribution.
Regards
Matthew West
Truth here is twice ! Internal, Intrinsic, as pointed Matthew and Fabian,
> Check can be made that "no inintended consequences" of the Inferences,
> Implies Contradictory Statements.
> External, Extrinsic,
> Check can be made that "no inintended consequences" of the Inferences,
> involving what behavior was expected against any "Real" other Entity.
> In a Theory named "X", the Axioms are "True" because setted as So !
> In, within, a classical, monoton, Logic, if no contradiction occurs, Deductions are
> "True" too.
> But, there are moderns Logics, as Lewis's for example, as soon as there are,
> even finite, several "Logic Values", so "True", "False", "Zero", "Both", "Starting in Truth (0+),
> Starting in False (0-) and so on,
> Transitivity (The Friend of my Friend is a Friend of mine), will often cease to
> work for example !
> Matthew points that "The statement as given is theoretically true but seriously misleading in
> > > practice. Belief in it has led to serious harm - e.g. potentially
> > > life-threatening errors in medical ontologies. "
> A good Scientific Theory, even in Medecine, is one also "Good in Practice" !
> Well, I hope that Peter Yim received well the "Attached Document" in my last "Mail" to
> him, and will find a way to insert it in the discussion !
>
> Happy to read You All Again !
> Beaussart Eric.
>
>
> Message du 25/01/13 09:53
> > De : "'Matthew West'"
> > A : "'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'"
> > Copie à :
> > Objet : [ontology-summit] Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
> >
> > Dear Fabian,
> > Yes, but how do we know all the axioms are true? One check you can make is
> > that there are no unintended consequences in the inferences.
> > Regards
> > Matthew
> > On Jan 23, 2013 8:08 PM, "Fabian Neuhaus" wrote:
> >
> > > On 28 Dec 2012, at 17:50, Fabian Neuhaus wrote:
> > >
> > > Second, I don't see the need to explicitly talk about all inferences from
> > > the axioms as long as we are concerned with ontology languages that are
> > > based on truth-preserving deductive inference systems like Common Logic
> > or
> > > OWL. If all the axioms in X are true it follows that all inferences from
> > > the axioms in X are true.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The statement as given is theoretically true but seriously misleading in
> > > practice. Belief in it has led to serious harm - e.g. potentially
> > > life-threatening errors in medical ontologies. If human beings could
> > > recognise all the inferences that follow from a set of axioms, we wouldn't
> > > need reasoners. Axioms can be superficially plausible but have unexpected
> > > consequences, especially when combined with other superficially plausible
> > > axioms. Subtle errors in axioms that are difficult to spot can have
> > > disproportionate effects.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > We can only know that a set of axioms is accurate by examining the
> > > inferences that follow from them to see if any are false. (Of course we
> > > can't examine all inferences except in trivial cases, but systematic
> > > searches for unanticipated inferences is central to the QA of any ontology
> > > in which inference plays a significant role.)
> > >
> > > I have watched top logicians spend hours trying to understand the
> > > reasoning that led to an obviously false inference from what seemed an
> > > obviously correct set of axioms, even with the help of automatic theorem
> > > provers, justification finders, etc.
> > >
> > > Add to this the difficulties of axioms derived from work by domain
> > > experts, no matter how clever the tools, and there is more than ample
> > > opportunity for incorrect inferences from apparently correct axioms.
> > >
> >
> >
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