On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 01:38:30PM +0100, John A. Bateman wrote:
> Just to restate this again, as it frequently gets lost:
>
> [Chris Menzel]
> >It strikes me that it might be best to play down the idea of a
> >lattice of theories/ontologies. The idea ? induced simply by the
> >fact that, for any two theories, one is a subset of the other or not
> >(in which case the theories are not on a common branch of the
> >lattice) ? is meant only as a helpful image (I think John himself
> >agrees), not as anything implementable (not that Leo is suggesting
> >otherwise).
>
> I for one would be more than a little sad if this idea gets played
> down to much.
> ... [good stuff elided] ...
> In our opinion, the use of structured connections between structured
> theories certainly buys something practical. (Well, it offers
> something practical, we have to convince others to do the buying I
> expect :-) (01)
But I heartily agree with identifying *actual* structural connections
between *actual* structured theories! And moreover, I agree with
characterizing those connections in a general, systematic and abstract
way. That is exactly how semantic integration should be approached and
characterized. I did not make my point well. Once again, I only want
folks to be able to distinguish well between the highly abstract,
infinite lattice of mostly unexpressed theories and the (comparatively)
very small sublattice of concretely expressed theories that we are
actually dealing with in our integration efforts. I have simply seen a
variety of confusions pop up over the lattice of theories in a number of
contexts and was suggesting that perhaps the image should be avoided in
favor of something rather more concrete for purposes of the UOS. That's
all. :-) Perhaps I'm making much ado about nothing... (02)
-chris (03)
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