Re: Multiple Inheritance and "rigid" properties
Christopher, I would like to reply fully to your comments and may try to do
so later, but to summarise now.
1. I am in favour of trying to create an SUO. I am concerned that people
go into the exercise recognising how big a challenge it may be. I believe
also an understanding of what Lakoff has to say will be helpful in tackling
this challenge, having applied this in developing the Enterprise Ontology
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~entprise/enterprise/ontology.html.
2. I am sympathetic with what I think you are trying to achieve with your
notion you have labelled "rigid" but think I may be able to improve on the
way it has been explained and the examples so far. This is where I could
write a lot.
3. I am concerned that everyone recognizes that any agreed SUO will still
be subjective, and am delighted you agree with me on this.
Yours, Martin
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"Christopher A. Welty" <weltyc@cs.vassar.edu> on 21/06/2000 18:24:28
Please respond to "Christopher A. Welty" <weltyc@cs.vassar.edu>
To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
cc: (bcc: Martin King/UK/IBM)
Subject: Re: Multiple Inheritance and "rigid" properties
At 9:49 AM +0100 6/21/00, martin_king@UK.IBM.COM wrote:
>Dear all. a contribution to this debate spurred by Nicola's.
>
>1. I would like to offer the strongest possible caution against believing
>that there are in any absolute sense classifications which are somehow
more
>rigid than all others. Note that this does not mean I am against trying
to
>define and seek agreement on some classifications to be treated as more
>rigid than others, but that having done so we cannot claim they are more
>rigid except in so far as some body have agreed to treat them so.
Two things in here. First, I don't think you get the notion we are
trying to capture with the word "rigid". A rigid "classification"
(your term) is one that is essential for all it's instances. We have
not yet begun to really discuss what the concepts in our SUO are, but
defining which ones we take (we the SUO designers) to be rigid will
be important, I believe. Take this simple example:
At least in the normal account, the property PERSON is rigid. At the
moment I'm not interested in whether you agree that PERSON is rigid,
at the moment I'm interested in WHAT IT MEANS for a property, e.g.
PERSON, to be rigid. I say it means that no instance of PERSON can
cease being an instance of PERSON, unless it (the instance) ceases to
be. Being a PERSON is essential to the existence of all instances of
person. There is a modal necessary there, for those that know what
that means.
Now, in the normal account, the property STUDENT is not rigid. This
means that it is possible for an instance of STUDENT to stop being an
instance of student.
Again, at the moment I'm not claiming PERSON *is* rigid and STUDENT
is not, I'm claiming that IF WE CHOOSE to say PERSON is rigid and
STUDENT is not, then the above holds. OK?
What we have, then, is a way of analyzing properties and describing
part of what we intend them to mean for our purposes.
Second, of course I agree that what we will come up with is
subjective. However, you're argument is actually one about trying to
devise an SUO at all. No matter what we come up with, there will be
people who don't like it, there will be cases that won't fit. But I
take for granted in this list that we will try to come up with an SUO
- and given that effort, we should try to make every aspect of our
intended meaning as clear as possible. Rigidity is one of these
aspects.
> One
>criterion for such a set of "rigid" classifications might be that they
>minimise the need for multiple inheritance. I also believe it is
>inherently difficult to agree on such classifications. For justification
>of these beliefs, I strongly recommend "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things"
>George Lakoff, 1987, or to show that this debate is even older,
>"Understanding Computers and Cognition", Terry Winograd and Fernando
>Flores, and "Data and Reality", William Kent.
The debate is far older than that. Pick up a few books in Philosophy
and start going backwards. But again, that there is a debate, and
an OLD one, is an argument against having an SUO at all. To me
that's like saying, (in the US) we have democrats and republicans and
they rarely agree on anything, so why vote?
-Chris
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