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Dear Hans,
Of course, you understood that, when I asked if you practise experimental sciences, I knew that the
answer will be positive ! And that it was just to point, to let you remind, that if life's experiences are coming without will,
scientific or technical experiences have rules, paradigms.
You took the effort for an extensive answer. Thanks for giving an explanation that I share
now completely !
In hope that in these "tracks", every exchange will be as fruitful as this one !
Best regards.
Eric Beaussart.
> Message du 20/02/13 02:24
> De : "Hans Polzer"
> A : "'Eric BEAUSSART'" , "'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'"
> Copie à :
> Objet : RE: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
>
>
Eric,
I have practiced experimental science, and I appreciate your point. In fairness, specifying context completely explicitly is also unattainable for the reasons you point out. However, I happen to believe (based on my experiences in the area of interoperability of systems) that going through the exercise of attempting to define context explicitly is an eye-opening and (with a salute to the 60’s) a “consciousness-raising” experience. This is basically what we do when using the SCOPE model in a workshop setting with stakeholders. While many participants will correctly list a lot of context assumptions they have made, there are always some significant context assumptions they have overlooked – usually because those assumptions are endemic to the professional and social environment in which they operate. In other words, they are assumptions that have “faded into the background” or that “everyone knows”.
Making ontologies as broadly applicable as possible, commensurate with the investment strategy and business model of the ontology sponsors, is certainly a desirable goal. In other words, the range of contexts in which the ontology applies should be as broad as possible. One can argue that this is operationally the same as making an ontology as context-free as possible. It is, after all, just a matter of degree. But I still think that it is more useful to attempt to enumerate context assumptions explicitly than it is to attempt to remove all implicit context assumptions and offer up an ontology as “context-free”.
Hans
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Eric BEAUSSART
> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 4:13 PM
> To: steve.ray@xxxxxxxxxx; 'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'
> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
Steve,
>
> Did you ever practice experimental sciences ?
> Allright, no one can reach the "Absolute Zero", the "Perfect Emptiness" and so on !
> No experimental "curve" with real values will follow the "Perfect Gaz" characteristics !
> No ! I don't make confusion between "Goal" and Reality !
> But If you just follow "empirical" and "practical" ways, be sure you will make some
> engineering, but no Science !
> But probably you just want to be an honnest "artisan" !
> Bye !
> Message du 19/02/13 21:51
> > De : "Steve Ray"
> > A : "'Eric BEAUSSART'" , "'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'"
> > Copie à :
> > Objet : RE: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
> >
> >
Eric,
Hans’ point that I was agreeing with was that an ontology cannot be context-free. The best it can do is to be explicit about what the assumptions are (i.e. context), which is what Michael Gruninger was calling semantic transparency. So context-free is not a condition for semantic transparency, it is an alternative, and one that can’t be achieved.
- Steve
Steven R. Ray, Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Fellow
Carnegie Mellon University
NASA Research Park
Building 23 (MS 23-11)
P.O. Box 1
> > Moffett Field, CA 94305-0001
Email: steve.ray@xxxxxxxxxx
Phone: (650) 587-3780
Cell: (202) 316-6481
Skype: steverayconsulting
From: Eric BEAUSSART [mailto:eric.beaussart@xxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 12:45 PM
> > To: steve.ray@xxxxxxxxxx; 'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'
> > Subject: RE: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
Allright Steve !
> >
> > Just, for me, I never pointed to "Universal ontology", but to be
> > "context free" is a condition for "semantic transparency" !
> >
> > Goodnight !
> > Eric.
> >
> >
> Message du 19/02/13 01:52
> > > De : "Steve Ray"
> > > A : "'Ontology Summit 2013 discussion'" , "'Eric BEAUSSART'"
> > > Copie à :
> > > Objet : RE: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
> > >
> > >
I entirely agree with this, and this is what I believe Michael Gruninger has called “semantic transparency,” a much more powerful and practical goal than either a universal ontology or a context-free ontology.
- Steve
Steven R. Ray, Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Fellow
Carnegie Mellon University
NASA Research Park
Building 23 (MS 23-11)
P.O. Box 1
> > > Moffett Field, CA 94305-0001
Email: steve.ray@xxxxxxxxxx
Phone: (650) 587-3780
Cell: (202) 316-6481
Skype: steverayconsulting
Eric,
I don’t think you will find a “context-free” ontology. Every ontology is developed with many implicit context assumptions. I think a more practical approach is to get ontology developers to more explicitly state what their context assumptions are and make those assumptions accessible on the network so that others can dynamically discover and determine whether the ontology satisfies their own context assumptions. That way, someone decorating a room or building a room or using a room as a classroom or sales office can determine whether the room ontology in question is suitable for their needs, even if it was designed for hotel managers or tour operators or city tax assessment officials (but not for terrorist targeteers or drug dealers looking for a “safe house”).
Hans
From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Eric BEAUSSART
> > > Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 4:28 PM
> > > To: Ontology Summit 2013 discussion; [ontolog-forum]
> > > Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
Dear Fellows,
> > >
> > > I must say that even some just want to build Ontologies for "Reasonnig",
> > > an Onotlogy is always Integration of Knowledge !
> > > Also, an ontology, as well as "Language Free" must be "Context free" !
> > > So let's assume we build the Ontology of "Room" !
> > > It must work for a "Tour Operator" as well as an "Hotel" and so on as it
> > > must precisely let them talk all about the same !
> > > So long !
> > > Eric B.
> > >
> > >
> Message du 17/02/13 21:36
> > > > De : "Amanda Vizedom"
> > > > A : "[ontolog-forum]" , "Ontology Summit discussion"
> > > > Copie à :
> > > > Objet : Re: [ontology-summit] [ontolog-forum] {quality-methodology} Architectural considerations in Ontology Development - integration, reasoning, and some particulars about Cyc
> > > >
> > > >
I am copying this response to a thread on [ontolog-forum] also to [ontology-summit], as it relates to similarly titled thread there, and to the question of what ontology features are important for what kinds of of ontology applications.
Three points below: (1) on the integrating vs. reasoning view; (2) a correction regarding statements that Cyc ontology is not meant for integrating; and (3) regarding what appears to be a talking-past, regarding context (in particular, regarding the possibility of representing and reasoning across different contexts.
(1) Matthew West said [MW]:
Unfortunately, both you and Doug completely missed the point that we were
talking about methodologies for INTEGRATING (or conceptual) ontologies, not
I'd like to reel that line of argument in a bit. It can be useful to distinguish between integration-centric (or interoperability-centric) uses of ontology and reasoning-centric uses of ontology.
However, to assume that such uses must, or usually do, take place in separate applications, or be performed using different ontologies, is to step beyond the information at hand. And to step right into the knowledge gap around which kinds of ontologies are used successfully for what.
In fact, much ontology-based information integration or federation requires reasoning to some degree or other. Sometimes the reasoning is quite limited, e.g., to class subsumption and similar. Sometimes the reasoning is quite sophisticated, as in applications using Cyc's Semantic Knowledge Source Integration capabilities (about which, more in a moment). Often it's somewhere in the middle: Generally subsumption based, with areas of greater depth and sophistication. The point is that it's quite common that ontologies intended to support information interoperability must support some reasoning in order to perform their primary goal.
(2) Regarding the various comments that have been made about Cyc in this context, a few corrections are needed. First of all, to the claim that Cyc is not an integrating ontology. This is simply false. Cyc is often used to do integration and reasoning in the same application. In fact, this combining capability existed and was used in Cyc projects almost 20 years ago, and was called out, named, and marketed as a high-value use of Cyc in the early 2000s. [See, for example: Masters J, Güngördü Z. 2003. Structured Knowledge Source Integration: A Progress Report . Integration of Knowledge Intensive Multiagent Systems, Cambridge; Masters J. 2002. Structured Knowledge Source Integration and its applications to information fusion . Fifth International Conference on Information Fusion. These are downloadable from http://www.cyc.com/publications. Not on that page, but also relevant, is a paper I presented at Fusion 2001: "Knowledge Base Support for Decision Making Using Fusion Techniques in a C2 Environment." This paper described work for DARPA's Command Post of the Future project, using integration and reasoning via Cyc to support detection of anomaly patterns suggestive of enemy intent, where such detection required processing input from multiple (HUMINT and SIGINT) information streams and reasoning over the combined information.] The point here is that not only is integration within Cyc's intended purposes, but such use was well out in front of the curve of semantic interoperabilty.
(3) Doug and John made comments about use of Cyc microtheories in this regard. Matthew objects with several ways of putting the point:
MW: It is the other way round. We need to relate the concepts in a wide range of systems to the normative standards. That gives some interesting requirements on those standards:
> > > > - The standard needs to be able to have any concept from those legacy system mapped to it, ...
and
MW: On the contrary, for an integrating ontology, you only want one way to say something, but you want it to be the most expressive way of saying it, so that any other way can be expressed that way.
MW: That is even worse. You have to be able to translate between conflicting representations, and bring the results into one environment, or you have not actually managed to integrate anything.
> > > >
MW: No. What you would need is a mapping between Cyc and your integrating ontology so that different microtheories that covered the same area of the integrating ontology were mapped to the same place in the integrating ontology. This would bring all the ground facts in Cyc into a form where they could be compared, and integrated with those from different sources.
I think there is a talking-past here. This might be because of some undescribed features of Cyc's microtheories. In particular, they are not dumb containers; they can be related to one another in all sorts of ways, and reasoning across them is common. You can even specify: that a particular source external to Cyc (agent, db, or other) is the expert about particular areas of knowledge; that a particular microtheory matches or models that source's ontology; that particular assumptions (however upper, mid, or lower level) hold within this microtheory, that particular relationships hold between the things in that microtheory and particular things in other (typically, more general) microtheories, and so on. This enables Cyc to exchange information with the source within its own model, and then to relate the resulting information to other information in Cyc, whether it be stored in Cyc or accessed from another such source
If I'm understanding Matthew correctly, this gives the desired integrating functionality. That is, given how microtheories work in Cyc, it doesn't appear that there is much actual, or deep, disagreement here.
P.S. As usual, since it has been almost a decade since I worked at Cycorp, I encourage current (or more recent) #$Cyclists to correct or update what I said, and to provide more or better references and examples.
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