See inline comments. (01)
-----Original Message-----
From: Cassidy, Patrick J. [mailto:pcassidy@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 6:42 PM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] Other Approaches Too. (02)
[MU] >> The term 'common upper ontology' is ambiguous. (03)
I try real hard not to get hung up on terminology, but the term "common
upper ontology" does imply its purpose. "Common" and "community" have
the same Latin root. A Common Upper Ontology is an upper ontology used
in common by a community - two or more people who want their semantic
systems to interoperate. (04)
MU: This all makes perfect sense, and I agree, linguistically and
semantically. It is also true that the term has two different senses, a
strong one and a much weaker one, and thus is potentially confusing.
-- (05)
The version of the statement suggested by Jim Schoening:
"A common upper ontology is essential for achieving affordable
and scalable semantic interoperability." (06)
. . . still appears to me to express the idea well, and is, I think,
true - if one interprets "semantic interoperability" as meaning a high
level of accuracy, rather than some partial ability to communicate.
When the first version of that statement was suggested to me (by someone
else), I interpreted the "essential" to mean "essential to a community
that wants their separate semantic systems to accurately interpret
knowledge communicated by other systems in the community". (07)
MU: Essentially, 'essential' means cannot be done without it. ULOs
might be the most promising one we know of now. But I don't see how we
can all sign off on the idea that we are certain that no other
technology ever in the near or distant future of mankind can possibly
achieve affordable and scalable semantic interoperability that does not
use a common UO? Perhaps this interpretation of the meaning of
'essential' is not essential, is there a better one that I could sign
off on? Could we use a less ambiguous word for that other meaning?
-- (08)
Where systems achieve semantic interoperability in some limited
domain by use of some common data schemas that would not qualify as an
"ontology", I have suggested that that is the "equivalent" of a common
upper ontology - i.e. the most abstract and general data structures in a
common schema serve the same purpose as a common upper ontology. But
these are not scalable. The Common Upper Ontology that would result
from some means of interrelating the existing upper ontologies would be
of much broader applicability than any other Common Upper Ontology (or
its equivalent) used in any specialized community. The community that
could use such a CUO profitably would be large and worldwide. (09)
Pat (010)
Patrick Cassidy
MITRE Corporation
260 Industrial Way
Eatontown, NJ 07724
Mail Stop: MNJE
Phone: 732-578-6340
Cell: 908-565-4053
Fax: 732-578-6012
Email: pcassidy@xxxxxxxxx (011)
-----Original Message-----
From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Uschold,
Michael F
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 8:04 PM
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] Other Approaches Too. (012)
The term 'common upper ontology' is ambiguous. (013)
It suggests an agreed standard.
It can also mean an ontology that [happens to be] used by more than one
application. (014)
Hence, it is ambiguous. (015)
Perhaps we can use the term 'shared upper ontology' for the latter, and
use the term 'standard upper ontology' for the former. (016)
The problem with the term 'standard upper ontology' is that it could
imply ONE standard, rather than one of a number of alternative
standards. (017)
There is another distinction:
* multiple independently developed and unrelated standard upper
ontologies.
* a group of standards that is a coherent package, with the
relationships between the different ones clearly identified. Whether or
not they were originally developed independently is a matter of
historical interest. (018)
WE are in the former situation now, and would like to move to the latter
one. (019)
Mike (020)
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