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Re: [uos-convene] The value of ULO

To: Upper Ontology Summit convention <uos-convene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Sergei Nirenburg <sergei@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 18:14:40 -0500
Message-id: <E8EEA79D-D1F0-4AEB-9EFC-2FBA37864956@xxxxxxxx>

On Mar 11, 2006, at 5:58 PM, Bill Andersen wrote:    (01)

> C'mon, Leo!  You're spoiling my fun!  And why do all of this work  
> if it isn't fun?  :-D
>
> Actually, I am serious about that test I mentioned.  If some entity  
> like DARPA or ARDA is looking for something worthwhile to do, I  
> would consider a test such as this worthy of funding.    (02)

Well, in order to assure that this test actually works, we need to  
demonstrate
that a realistic application system that relies on an ontology beats  
a system
that addresses the same application but does not use an ontology.    (03)

And this, in turn, highlights the need of including a means of  
automatically creating
ontologically supported assertion bases, carry out reasoning using  
them and
then outputting results in a form that can be readily evaluated in  
comparison
with non-ontological applications.    (04)

This is a lot of work, though I would be very happy to take a part in  
such a test,
especially if the task involves analyzing and generating text (my  
colleagues and I
have been building NLP applications based on ontology-supported
text analysis and generation for many years.)    (05)

Sergei    (06)

> On Mar 11, 2006, at 17:55 , Obrst, Leo J. wrote:
>
>> Bill,
>>
>> We are ALL on your side, because we have all gone through this so  
>> many
>> times. We all firmly believe in the value and ultimate necessity of
>> Upper Ontologies -- because we have fought our way to this conclusion
>> the hard way. We just need to impress this experience on others who
>> have not yet undergone the baptism by fire. Teach them, not exorcise
>> them.
>>
>> Leo
>>
>> ps. So does this mean that relational databases don't already provide
>> everything that we need? ;)
>> _____________________________________________
>> 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
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:uos-convene-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bill
>> Andersen
>> Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 5:36 PM
>> To: Upper Ontology Summit convention
>> Subject: [uos-convene] The value of ULO
>>
>> Just a quick comment on Mills' comment:
>>
>> Before continuing, let me first say that I am happy that Mills is an
>> advocate for ontologies in general.  Ok...  but...
>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I am having a very hard time understanding this comment.  Short of
>> HAL-9000, just what technology might that be that will subsume UO or
>> "obviate UO arguments"?
>>
>> One of the things that has been systematically overlooked in these
>> discussions is that almost all of the ULOs under discussion here are
>> at least in part philosophically motivated.  This includes at least
>> SUMO, Cyc, DOLCE, and Matt West's 4D ontology and to a lesser extent
>> PSL.  They are so because the philosophers have been at this business
>> for 2500 years, long before the advent of the W3C.  The tools of
>> mathematical logic and later computational logic were what were
>> needed to make this 2500 years of work effective.
>>
>> As for efficacy, I have been arguing the need for this since my first
>> posts to this mailing list.  One comment that I have made more than a
>> couple times in different guises is that the value of ULO lies NOT
>> ONLY in semantic interoperability but has engineering advantages as
>> well for building individual ontologies.  Our experience at OW has
>> been that we build better ontologies much faster (and thus at less
>> cost) than those who take a tabula rasa approach, no matter what
>> formalism they work in.  That we have done this, you'll just have to
>> take my word as the work was either classified or FOUO.
>>
>> The good news is you don't have to take my word for it.  I suggest we
>> set up an experiment by which teams of comparable expertise in their
>> chosen formalisms, given the same domain description and a fixed
>> amount of time, one using a ULO and one prohibited from doing so,
>> build a domain ontology to meet the description.  Then, given the
>> same data sets, both are subject to a bank of blind competence
>> questions based solely on the domain description by parties
>> unfamiliar with the logical formalisms employed.  We repeat the
>> experiment several times on different domains.  As an added bonus, we
>> then take the resulting domain ontologies and, using them as starting
>> points, ask each team (ULO, and non-ULO) to *extend* them to a
>> different, but related domain.  Then more competency questions.
>>
>> I know on which team I'll place my bet.  Any takers?
>>
>>      .bill
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
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>
> 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
>
>
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> UpperOntologySummit    (07)

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