This has been an interesting thread... (01)
Let me highlight this remark by Leo, as goals for the UO summit: (02)
LEO: I don't think the UOS is after that "grand unification" but in fact
after a commitment to map among the existing upper ontologies or to
identify some subset of all of those upper ontologies on which they can
agree, to promote 1) greater use of the individual upper ontologies, 2)
greater semantic interoperability.
-- (03)
Also, there is a lot of work comparing object-oriented modeling with OWL
here:
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/SE/ODSD/
There is a note called:
"A Semantic Web Primer for Object-Oriented Software Developers"
=== (04)
-----Original Message-----
From: Obrst, Leo J. [mailto:lobrst@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2006 12:05 PM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] Other Approaches Too. (05)
Bill, (06)
Some comments below. (07)
Leo (08)
_____________________________________________
Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
lobrst@xxxxxxxxx Center for Innovative Computing & Informatics
Voice: 703-983-6770 7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA (09)
-----Original Message-----
From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill Andersen
Sent: Sunday, February 26, 2006 2:10 PM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: Re: [uos-convene] Other Approaches Too. (010)
Hi Leo... (011)
Wow. That was a long reply. Rather than respond to all of it in
detail, allow me to compress your remarks. The fault lies with me if
I've misinterpreted anything you meant. (012)
LEO: That's why I called it "longish", i.e., long-winded English ;) (013)
> LEO: One distinction between entity-relation (or extended
> entity-relation) and UML on the one hand and RDF and OWL on the other
> is that the latter are primarily logics and have a defined formal
> semantics. (014)
Granted - there is a semantics to E-R and UML but they are very weak.
That wasn't what I was getting at, however. Let me put my reply in the
form of a question which I would like the UOS to address: (015)
(1) Is there a difference between a formally-expressed logical theory
and an "ontology"?
(2) If you answered YES to (1), then what is that difference?
(3) If you answered NO to (1), then why is this situation any better for
integration than the current state of data models, other than the fact
that once you posit some correspondences between models, the logic helps
you identify logical inconsistencies? (016)
LEO: Ok, I answer (4) (i.e., no, don't force me into your decision tree!
;). To me a logical ontology (as opposed to weaker models) is both A) a
logical theory, i.e., a theory expressed in a logic, and B) a logical
theory which purports to be something about the world (real or possible,
the latter grounded in the real world). We can for example have
completely consistent logical theories about arbitrary crap; one "real
world" example: the elaborate consistent models of paranoids.
Given magic premises and the usual logical apparatus, much is possible. (017)
LEO: However, the current state of data and object models is: 1) the
knowledge representation language they use isn't, 2) the models they
create aren't ontologies; 3) if they were concerned about real world
(and possible) semantics AND represented that in a logical language,
then, yes, welcome aboard! They have developed an ontology. But I don't
see (3)in the data or object worlds yet. (018)
> LEO: Data models primarily focus on "local" semantics, not "real
> world"
> semantics, i.e., the very narrow view from a need to organize data
for
> specific purposes and applications in a given part of an
organization. (019)
This is true. The job of a data model (as conventionally applied) is to
provide persistence support to applications. Of course there has been a
tremendous amount of work, dating back to the 70's (I'm thinking of Bill
Kent's "Data and Reality") that argue that data models, too, need to pay
attention to the "real world". Is the only thing new with "ontologies"
that they bring some extra logical muscle to achieving this
attention-paying on a larger scale? (020)
LEO: De facto, all data models are local. There may be those who have
promoted wider visions of those models, but I expect 99% of database
folks (theorists and practitioners) will say: only obliquely are we
concerned with the "real world". (021)
> LEO: I don't see any solution for semantic interoperability/
> integration that excludes the use of an upper ontology (or a lattice
> of theories, if you will, some of which are upper theories). (022)
As usual, I agree with you. However, if one counts up the projects (and
here I'm talking about *real* non-academic projects) that use an upper
level ontology to effect, that number is far outstripped by the number
of "beer ontologies" "wine ontologies", etc, that can be easily
demonstrated to be as rigid and non-extensible as data models. (023)
LEO: Agree. These are just well-defined domain ontologies using a
logical language. However, they are at least modelled in a logical
language, unlike those data models. There is value in logic. Even
conceptual models, when modelled in logic, are of more value than
conceptual models modelled in some non-logical, ad hoc language (and
even "language" here is often too strong of a term). (024)
If the purpose of the UOS is to achieve some kind of grand unification
of existing upper levels, I think we're shooting at the wrong target.
That's an interesting project, but I don't think, given the relatively
sparse use of ULO in general, that it's the most pressing project for
those who care about ontology vs logic or data modeling. There's no or
little disagreement among this crowd that ULO makes sense for lots of
reasons. (025)
LEO: I don't think the UOS is after that "grand unification" but in fact
after a commitment to map among the existing upper ontologies or to
identify some subset of all of those upper ontologies on which they can
agree, to promote 1) greater use of the individual upper ontologies, 2)
greater semantic interoperability. (026)
The real target, IMHO, is the view that so-called "domain ontologies",
or domain-specific "upper levels" using formal logics constitute
ontology at all. (027)
LEO: It's unclear to me what you mean by this last statement. The real
target should be to dissuade everyone that: "so-called "domain
ontologies", or domain-specific "upper levels" using formal logics
constitute ontology at all"? Is that what you mean? I think domain
ontologies, domain-specific upper level ontologies, and true upper
ontologies, all expressed in a formal logic, are exactly what we are
after. I don't buy extreme actualism. I am a profligate ontologist, a
scientist/engineer/semanticist not a philosophical ontologist: I want
logically formalized theories that characterize the world (real and
possible) for use by software, with the additional meta-addendum that I
would like it to be as concise as possible, thinking that like the best
scientific theories, the fewer constructs that cover (describe and
predict from) the same domain and map to other well-known theories
simply, the better the theory. (028)
.bill (029)
Bill Andersen (andersen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) Chief Scientist Ontology
Works, Inc. (www.ontologyworks.com) 3600 O'Donnell Street, Suite 600
Baltimore, MD 21224
Office: 410-675-1201
Cell: 443-858-6444 (030)
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