ontology-summit
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontology-summit] The tools are not the problem (yet)

To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: John McClure <jmcclure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 23:51:14 -0800
Message-id: <52DF7872.6030509@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
John,
Please look at the predicates referenced in slides in several of the presentations you cited. You will see that they all use a verb and often a preposition, with one exception (part of, which can equally be expressed as is-within). All RDF properties that I've seen -- okay, there's the exception is-a in a few ontologies -- use nouns. It's no wonder that FOL'ers need to transform these models into something more in accordance with what I cited originally in this thread -- which you deleted in your original response (the guts of the original note) to my irritation:
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar.[1]
...
The second derives from work in predicate calculus (predicate logic, first order logic) and is prominent in modern theories of syntax and grammar. In this approach, the predicate of a sentence corresponds mainly to the main verb and any auxiliaries that accompany the main verb...
The matter of negation is a different, side issue in my mind. Please comment on the fundamental criticism I am making here about the design pattern for RDF properties: FOL's verbs vs RDF's nouns.

regards/jmc

On 1/21/2014 1:04 PM, John F Sowa wrote:
  1. See the slides and publications by the Aristo Project at AI2:
     http://www.allenai.org/TemplateGeneric.aspx?contentId=12

On 1/21/2014 11:16 PM, John F Sowa wrote:
On 1/22/2014 12:01 AM, John McClure wrote:
How can FOL'ers not be implicitly derisive of the work RDF'ers are
diligently about, when the first reaction is to THROW IT AWAY?
That's not the point I was trying to make.  I'm sorry that I used
the phrase 'throw it away' because it was not clear what I was
rejecting.

First point:  FOL is a small subset of English and other NLs.
Any language that has the words 'and', 'or', 'not', 'some',
and 'every' can express full FOL.  We all speak FOL every day.

Second point:  I wasn't rejecting what can be expressed in RDF.
You can use RDF to describe anything that you see, hear, or feel.
Every observation in science can be described in RDF.

But RDF can't express negation.  You can't say 'not'.  And if you
take RDF and add negation, you get -- guess what -- full FOL.

Some things you can't say in RDF:

  1. Options:  you can't say 'or' in RDF, because (p or q) is
     defined as not(not p and not q) -- and RDF can't say 'not'.

  2. Rules:  you can't express an if-then rule in RDF, because
     (if p then q) is defined as not(p and not q).

  3. Generalizations:  you can express 'all' or 'every' in RDF
     because 'every cat is an animal' is defined as
     'it's false that some cat is not an animal'.

My major complaint about RDF is that it makes simple things difficult.

John
 
_________________________________________________________________
Msg Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/   
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontology-summit/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontology-summit-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Community Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2014/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2014  
Community Portal: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 


_________________________________________________________________
Msg Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/   
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontology-summit/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontology-summit-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Community Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2014/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2014  
Community Portal: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/     (01)
<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>