Re: FW: Meaning: 'natural language semantics' vs 'formalsemantics'
martin_king@UK.IBM.COM wrote:
> In comment on my note below, Michael wrote:
>
> There is indeed a formal way to ensure that what one person (say Alice)
> chooses to assert is a sale is what the authors of the EO would agree is a
> sale.
> There are two aspects to this --
> 1. Is Alice's use of the EO correct with respect to the axioms of the EO?
> 2. Do the axioms of the EO fully capture the intuitions of its designers?
>
> I have no problem with the first part of this. I think the answer to the
> second is that given the nature of the real world, no ontology can ever
> fully capture the intuitions of the designers for all the classes of
> interest. I assert this in the sense that given a set of classes of
> structures, any user of the ontology will not be constrained, by virtue of
> conforming with the axioms, to represent a particular real world situation
> by the same set of members of those classes as would the designer.
>
> I support this assertion first by the discussion in Lakoff, as I have
> previously referenced, for example of the meaning of the word "ball", which
> on the surface looks trivially easy, but rapidly reveals difficult
> complexity. Second, because of the inherent limitations of the formal
> semantics. Yes, we can add ever more complex axioms about the classes of
> structures, and we can add more classes to the structure, but each of these
> is inherently open to different intuitive interpretations. Taken to
> extreme, we would be limited to enumerating all the permissible members of
> every class, an obviously impractical and useless conclusion.
>
I agree that we will not be able to fully capture all intuitions about all
concepts,
but I think that we can "asymptotically approach" them by axiomatizing
various necessary conditions.
For example, consider the concept of "machine". We can say that one of the
necessary properties of machines is that they are reusable resources, and we
can axiomatize what resources are, and what reusable means. This does
not capture all intuitions that people have about machines, but it is a start.
There will of course be other non-machines that satisfy this property
(e.g. people may want to distinguish between machines and tools).
If interoperability is prevented because of this nondistinction in some
scenario, then we need to extend the axiomatization to distinguish between
machines and non-machines in that scenario, so that interoperability can
be achieved.
It's really a case of cost-benefit analysis -- if the cost of ambiguity is too
great, then you better spend some effort to remove it, but if the ambiguity
can be tolerated, then there is no need to extend the axiomatization.
I see the role of the logically-oriented ontological engineer as presenting
the
users with all possible models of the proposed ontology and any consequences
of using the ontology. If the users like what they see, then everyone can
agree
on the ontology; if not, then the ontology needs to be revised. In all of
this, the
ontological engineer is an arbiter/judge of the ontology under review, rather
than someone advocating which models are intended or unintended.
- michael