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RE: [uos-convene] UOS Agenda and Logistical Details

To: "Upper Ontology Summit convention" <uos-convene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "West, Matthew R SIPC-DFD/321" <matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:14:42 -0000
Message-id: <A94B3B171A49A4448F0CEEB458AA661F02FCA16B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dear Pat,
 
A few comments below.
 
Regards
 
Matthew
-----Original Message-----
From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Cassidy, Patrick J.
Sent: 11 March 2006 18:27
To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
Subject: RE: [uos-convene] UOS Agenda and Logistical Details

UOS-conveners:

 

I think that the comments of Mills Davis (below, sent to Brand Niemann) provide a good example of the work that the upper ontology community has to do in order to explain to the wider world - including most people in the IT field - why upper ontologies are important for achieving broad semantic interoperability among diverse applications.

 

 The need for formalized definitions in ontologies has been preached by Doug Lenat and others since before 1990.  The basic ideas go back 50 years to the birth of "AI".  One might have supposed that by now everyone in IT would understand why computers need precise definitions to do logical inferencing on knowledge.   

 

MW: There is a lot more to ontology than inferencing (though I appreciate that that is the primary interest of most people here, and I also think inferencing is some of the most interesting stuff). All IT systems have an ontology, often it is implicit, and even where it is explicit it is usually very poor (even if one allowed the most favourable interpretation). So there is a great deal that can be done (and pots of money) in using upper ontologies for improving existing traditional systems and helping to reduce the costs of new ones by improving design. Even after that there is a lot to be done in integrating existing systems (as we know mapping between any two non-trivially different ontologies requires an FOL equivalent capability). 

 

 But this understanding is apparently still confined mostly to a small group who work with axiomatized ontologies.  Most of us in this group understand the potential benefits of automated reasoning over large knowledge bases, but some who are (properly) concerned with what can be done immediately remain to be convinced, either of the ultimate potential, the time required to get there, or the economic or social feasibility of the goal.   

 

MW: I think (know) there is a big gap between where most people are and the high end of what ontology offers. My experience in convincing people in any argument is that you have to start from where they are, which generally is with traditional systems that are too expensive and don't really work.

 

 It appears to me that those who are convinced of the benefits of upper ontologies need more effort at outreach to a broader audience.   The UOS was intended to help in that goal.  The result may depend on how much we can achieve on Tuesday.

 

Mills has been familiar with applications of knowledge representations for years, and yet he still asks:

   "why have one upper-level ontology when you can have them all? "

 

The answer, of course, is that having more than one upper-level ontology makes accurate and automated semantic interoperability impossible (or in the more cautious words of the  joint communiqué draft):

 

" . . .  use of some formally defined common upper ontology by an organization or community is the most cost-effective method for achieving semantic interoperability that can scale from a few applications to diverse knowledge-based reasoning systems ". 

 

MW: That is not jsut one UO at all, just one for a particular organization or community. However, if there are a few UO's that have good mappings between them, then you have more flexibility, and probably more power. 

 

 . . . but Mills is apparently not convinced.  And I think that he represents a very large fraction of the IT community in this respect.

 

I think that we cannot assume that just because someone has been exposed to arguments about the importance of upper ontologies, s/he will have understood the point.  Even worse, we cannot assume that someone who has access to, or been pointed to, discussions of the need for upper ontologies has even read such discussions, let alone understood them.  The issues are apparently complex enough that they need to be phrased as simply and  succinctly as possible, and be accompanied by pointers to examples illustrating how UOs can benefit users.  The former might be helped by the Joint Communique, which can be redistributed wherever it may do some good.  The examples are an issue we need to discuss on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. 

 

MW: My case studies will be in this area of tackling the problems people know they have today using a UO.

 

Another point that has come up in the course of these discussions is that most of those who are building domain ontologies or other knowledge classifications need something simple to work with, if they are going to align such knowledge bases with a more general concept classification.  This also impinges on the question of how much agreement can be achieved among the upper ontologists, and whether a "common subset" can be found.   These issues were raised by comments of (among others) Barry Smith, David McComb, Mills Davis, John Sowa, and Roy Roebuck.

 

But to serve the purposes of semantic interoperability, I think that most of us would agree that even a "simplified" upper ontology must have sufficient formalization to avoid the common ambiguities associated with linguistic terms.  This recalls Einstein's dictum:   "A theory should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. "

 

My own appreciation of these concerns leads me to feel that it would be very helpful to have an  axiomatized UO fragment that is simple enough to be rapidly and widely adopted so that it is highly visible, but axiomatized to sufficient precision to avoid the major ambiguities in interpreting the meanings of the terms, and can demonstrate to a wide audience the advantages of a common, formally defined higher-level ontology to enable information transfer among semantic modules.  Perhaps a common subset will serve such a purpose. 

 

MW: I do think there is work that can be shared, and that this would prove valuable, but I think it might end up looking a little different from what you seem to be envisioning.

 

The note of Mills Davis is attached directly below.

 

The current situation reminds me of the "muckraker" allegory from "Pilgrims Progress" and I have attached that reference below as well, with a short comment.

 

Pat

 

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

 

=======================================================

Note of Mills Davis to Brand Niemann

===========================================================


I talked with Steve, and yes, I'll do 20 minutes with Doug Lenat to 
set a business context for ontology.  Why? Because, at a minimum, it 
is good that the various ULO custodians are agreeing to work together 
to cross link and explore samenesses and differences between their 
approaches. This is the essence of the public statement they will 
come up with at the end of the second day. I support their desire to 
work together because I believe that the semantic wave is a big one 
and that all contributions are welcome and encouraged.

If you were to ask me where I think that this  ULO activity will come 
out, then I have the following thoughts:

(1) If the ULO quest is to arrive at one upper level ontology, then I 
think that the result will not be this. Rather, that there will 
emerge some few, a small set of primitives, that  link to low level 
concepts or instances of interest via a direct binary relationship; 
then, between these layers of abstraction, any taxonomy or upper 
level ontology can be interposed, allowing us to choose which is the 
best for our purposes. Bottom line, why have one upper-level ontology 
when you can have them all?  I suspect that the only reason to be 
looking for one upper level ontology would be if you believed that 
relational databases would be for ever and that  every item of data 
must have one and only one tag.

(2) Secondly, my interest is in the development of a "scientific 
method" for testing and evaluating the efficacy and validity of 
metaphysical patterns (ontology). In an era of knowledge computing, 
its is of critical importance to be able to validate and ground the 
ontology specifications in experimental data. Here, I think that the 
focus should shift from the nouns (concepts) to relationships and the 
theories that underly these relationships. Nouns require conventions 
and agreements. Relationships and the theories that underly them are 
much more limited and scientific.

Bottom line: I applaud and encourage the efforts of this UO 
community. By coming together, I hope they deliver value. At the same 
time, I'm reserving judgement (or, remaining agnostic regarding the 
value, pending evidence), and am harboring a supposition that in the 
next year or so, technology may be emerging that will obviate UO 
arguments by subsuming all of these disparate approaches and 
subjecting them to tests of efficacy.

 

====================================

Pat Cassidy: fable for the day.

===================================

 

There will always be a tension between those who are concerned with what is concrete and doable immediately, and those who are concerned about the things that can be done in the near future that represent a qualitative improvement over the immediate.  The fable of the "muckraker" from "Pilgrim's Progress" puts that in an allegorical (though religious) form:

 

From Paul Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, stage 2

------------------------

This done, and after those things had been somewhat digested by Christiana and her company, the Interpreter takes them apart again, and has them first into a room where was a man that could look no way but downwards, with a muck-rake in his hand. There stood also one over his head with a celestial crown in his hand, and proffered him that crown for his muck-rake; but the man did neither look up nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and dust of the floor.

Then said Christiana, I persuade myself that I know somewhat the meaning of this; for this is a figure of a man of this world: is it not, good sir?

INTER. Thou hast said right, said he; and his muck-rake doth show his carnal mind. And whereas thou seest him rather give heed to rake up straws and sticks, and the dust of the floor, than to do what He says that calls to him from above with the celestial crown in his hand; it is to show, that heaven is but as a fable to some, and that things here are counted the only things substantial. Now, whereas it was also showed thee that the man could look no way but downwards, it is to let thee know that earthly things, when they are with power upon men's minds, quite carry their hearts away from God.

-----------------------------

 

[PC] Apparently, a common upper ontology that can enable semantic interoperability "is but as a fable to some".   I hope that the UOS meeting can help to provide evidence that the benefits of upper ontologies are more "substantial" than many in the wider world currently believe.

 

 

 -- Pat
 
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