On terms vs. referents and defining meaning, this is how I think of it: (01)
When building an ontology, there are [at least] three core tasks:
1. identifying the 'things of interest' that will be included in your
ontology
2. carefully define those things, initially informally, using your
favorite natural language.
3. identify terms to refer to those things of interest. (02)
While 3 is extremely important, it is of secondary importance to 1 and
2. (03)
Too often, people focus first on the term, and then argue incessantly
about what its definition should be. What they are really discussing
many different 'things of interest', many of which are subtle variations
on each other, and that will not end up in the ontology. Such arguing is
typically a highly inefficient way to spend time. (04)
Mike (05)
-----Original Message-----
From: Obrst, Leo J. [mailto:lobrst@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 10:28 AM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention; Chris Menzel
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] RE: Upper Ontology Summit (06)
Matthew, (07)
I think your issue is that you are afraid of a smushing together of term
and ontology. However, I think we can keep these quite distinct, if we
consider that meaning has at least two components, sense and
denotation/reference. Then a term (as word or phrase, as opposed to
"term" in logic, i.e., more formally) has two components of meaning:
the internal notion (sense) and the external notion (reference).
Ontology is "about" denotation/reference but the terms (or combinations
of them) index ideas (or concepts; and combinations of ideas/concepts)
that refer to or are "about" those real world references/denotations. I
take a pragmatic, though principled view, and have no problem putting
unicorns in an ontology (little o), though I doubt they exist in the
actual world. So I have no problem with representing those intermediate
idea/concept notions that stand in for real or possible world objects
and calling them ontology notions. A unicorn is in fact well-defined,
has mostly all the characteristics of a horse, and as long as we
identify it as a fictional or imagined entity, what is the problem? (08)
Leo (09)
-----Original Message-----
From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of West, Matthew
R SIPC-DFD/321
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 12:44 PM
To: Chris Menzel; Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] RE: Upper Ontology Summit (010)
Dear Chris, (011)
I'm not arguing that language is not important, just that it is not
ontology. Mostly I hope we are talking about exchange between computers,
so e.g. English language terms are not a critical element - not many
databases read English, and it is between databases that most computers
exchange information. (012)
So in ISO 15926 we distinguish between the thing of interest, and the
term(s) that might be used to designate that thing. Now whilst I accept
that this amounts to giving a meaning to a term, this is a by-blow of
ontologically identifying that there are terms and objects that they
refer to as part of the ontology. (013)
So it worries me if what we think we are really doing is defining terms. (014)
Regards (015)
Matthew (016)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Chris
Menzel
> Sent: 22 February 2006 15:10
> To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
> Cc: Upper Ontology Summit Organizing Committee
> Subject: Re: [uos-convene] RE: Upper Ontology Summit
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 09:09:36AM -0000, West, Matthew R
SIPC-DFD/321
> wrote:
> > > Conclusion of the Upper Ontology Summit
> > >
> > > The theory and technology of knowledge representation
> have advanced
> > > to a stage where the concepts that are the meanings of
> terms can be
> > > formally
> >
> > MW: Ontology is supposed to be about what exists, not the meaning
of
> > terms.
>
> I think you're equivocating on both "ontology" and "about" here,
> Matthew. True enough, a *given* ontology purports to be about some
> chunk of the world. But we talk about the world by using language,
> and surely it is a primary function of an ontology to fix the meanings (017)
> of its component terms with sufficient rigor to faciliate the accurate (018)
> exchange of information. In that sense big-O Ontology -- the nascent
> science of constructing and using little-O ontologies -- is very much
> about meaning. In fact, I would argue that Ontology is much more
> about meaning than "what exists". There are perhaps good
> philosophical reasons to think that an ontology is effective in virtue (019)
> of
accurately
> describing what exists -- I believe this myself -- but that is just a
> philosophical stake in the ground that, ultimately, doesn't much
> matter; it's more religion than science. Your 4Dism, for example,
> postulates that things that are temporally located in the future
> relative to us nonetheless exist as robustly as we do.
> Philosophically, I find that position repugnant. But, as I've
> acknowledged before, it might be a useful assumption to make for
> certain knowledge engineering purposes like planning, in which case so (020)
> much the worse for my delicate philosophical senstivities.
> Ultimately, whether or not we are describing what there is -- REALLY
> -- is neither here nor there. The question is whether our ontologies
> *work*, whether the axioms and definitions we provide for the terms
> they contain provide effective, well-defined, systematic
> characterizations of the phenomena we have found it important for our
> purposes to represent.
>
> Chris Menzel
>
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> (021)
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