Re: SUO: Maintenance - related issues
Graham wrote:
> > > I think John has aired some important points below, which hedge around my
> > > stance that the benefits of the current thrusts will be minor compared to
> > > that achievable if the SUO structure focuses on the formats of an
> > > unambiguous adaptation of natural language.
> >
> > It is good that you recognize you would need an "adaptation" of natural
> > language. To eliminate ambiguity adequately and achieve the clarity
> > necessary to ensure undertanding of an ontology -- notably, the logical
> > properties of, and relations among, its constituent concepts -- you will
> > have to regiment natural language to an extent that, in effect, your
> > "adaptaton" is a first-order language.
>
> GH> I'm quite happy with this. I believe it would benefit a large
> number of lay people to be aware that such a language would be
> available to facilitate unambiguous communication.
I don't understand, Graham. My point was that the degree of
regimentation needed to do what you seemed to be wanting would,
effectively, yield a first-order language, i.e., the result would no
longer be recognizable as a natural language -- you'd end up with would
be effectively indistinguishable from KIF. This was supposed to entail
either that (i) the formal SUO is *already* what you want, or (ii) what
you want is impossible. But you seem to be embracing the idea.
> > > The SUO is currently instead heading down the road of becoming a
> > > highly
> > symbolic ontology that will be very foreign and unreadable to the
> > average lay person.
> >
> > Like most any engineering model with the rigor needed to perform its
> > intended function.
>
> GH> As an engineer, one who has been an innovator in that role,
> and one who reads engineering history books as part of a hobby, I
> can't say I agree with you here. Some of those books are very clear
> and succinct in plain English, and could be used as design manuals.
I was thinking more in terms of technical mathematical models that are
not amenable to such translation. I think an SUO is akin to those --
though of course, like any technical model, lots of helpful discursive
annotation is possible. But it's no substitute for the model itself.
> GH> Coming from the other extreme, I would say it's possible to
> precisely and unambiguously explain in words every symbol and symbolic
> expression in English words. I'm not necessarily saying this would be easy,
> mind you, but that's why I would prefer the adaptation mentioned above to
> avoid existing ambiguities and imprecisions.
Again, my claim is that you'd end up with, basically, KIF with perhaps a
superficially friendlier face. Consider:
(forall (?x)
(=> (Boy ?x)
(exists (?y)
(and (Girl ?y)
(Kissed ?x ?y)))))
This translates directly into
"Every boy kissed a girl."
But that won't do, right? Did each boy kiss some girl or other, or was
there some one girl that each kissed? The English is ambiguous where
the KIF statement is not. So we need:
"For each boy there is some girl such that he kissed her."
Things are already starting to sound pretty KIF-y and not very natural
language-y. But matters don't end there. "he" and "she" work in this
case because there are only two objects involved. But suppose we had
instead
(forall (?x)
(=> (Boy ?x)
(exists (?y ?z)
(and (Girl ?y)
(Girl ?z)
(/= ?y ?z)
(Kissed ?x ?y)
(Discussed ?z ?x ?y)))))
What do we do with this? How about:
"For each boy there are two girls such that he kissed one of them
and the other discussed him with her."
Not exactly a lucid rendering. What's needed in order to clarify, of
course, is some sort of quantificational apparatus with variable binding
to make clear the meanings of the pronouns in the context, something
like:
"For each boy_1 there is a girl_2 and another distinct girl_3 such
that he_1 kissed her_2 and she_3 discussed him_1 with her_2."
And things look KIF-ier still. Is this the sort of thing you have in
mind? If not, you can't express in your NL adaptation what can be
expressed in KIF. IF so, I'll take KIF.
Note we can pretty up even the above KIF using sorted quantifiers, as
John Sowa regularly suggests:
(forall (?x : (Boy ?x))
(exists (?y ?z : (Girl ?x) (Girl ?y))
(and (/= ?y ?z)
(Kissed ?x ?y)
(Discussed ?z ?x ?y))))
I doubt you can improve much on this.
> GH Not a bit of it. I am proposing an absolutely precise
> adaptation of English. This would be largely a subset of the current
> language we all speak, for example each word would be restricted to
> only one meaning (preferably the most commonly used of its current
> meanings), but also:
> * where some words be allocated a modified
> meaning (precise, and preferably closely aligned to its current most
> commonly used meaning) where the current meaning is hazy ("manage" and
> "administer" may be examples where this would be appropriate, the
> former possibly being defined as the controlling through development
> of policy, and the latter as controlling through the application of
> policy); and
> * there would be some new words fabricated to cover
> useful concepts where these are either not currently covered by a
> single word, or, more commonly, where the current word used is a
> metaphorical application of an existing word with another main
> meaning(eg. "button", "mouse", "head", "monitor", etc.); while
> * there may also be means of indicating different uses of words, such
> as where the same word can act in more than part of speech (unless this
> can be reliably indicated by the specified syntax / grammar).
I think most of your proposal addresses possible ambiguities in
particular words. That is, granted, an important source of amibuity
which, to some degree perhaps, could be addressedin your NL fashion.
But I think the real challenge is in addressing ambiguity and other
issues of logical form like those above. Those are the phenomena that I
believe will drive you toward something equivalent to KIF.
> > But that does not undermine the need for a formal SUO for computational
> > applications.
>
> GH> Of course not. What I'm saying is that, through such means as I've
> indicated above, the formal SUO can be based on natural language, and that,
> if that is done (and done well), then it would achieve far wider acceptance,
> and would provide have greater value to human kind.
Ok, I just didn't see anything about the validity, relevance, or
importance of the formal direction in your original post.
> > > However, I feel this means it will remain buried in the secret files of
> > > industry designers and software developers, and probably not even of
> > managers.
> >
> > No secrets here; it will be a public standard.
>
> GH> Yes, technically you are quite correct, and this applies to
> many standards already. However, almost all of them may as well be
> industrial secrets, for all the majority of the populace are aware,
> even in "1st World" countries.
I suppose the SUO will be as big an industrial secret as, say, Newton's
laws or Maxwell's equations. I'm not sure "industrial secret" is the
right rubric here.
> > And far more accessible than many mathematically oriented standards.
> > (My better freshman students can translate proficiently into
> > first-order logic after 3 months of biweekly classes.)
>
> GH> Agreed, but that doesn't mean one closely based on natural language
> wouldn't be far user-friendlier.
If one were possible. My belief is that such a thing isn't, unless you
call constructions like the above "closely based on natural language".
> I am proposing an SUO that would be far more widely accessible than
> one intended for society's intellectual elites.
I would caution against trotting out loaded terms like "elite" in this
context, as it suggests an intentional hoarding of resources for personal
power and gain; it would be profoundly unfair to tar anyone with that
brush without a great deal of evidence. It would be great if quantum
mechanics and the calculus were more widely accessible as well. But it
just might be a fact that, like these areas of science and mathematics,
the content of the SUO will not be fully accessible without a certain
level of education. If so, the charge of elitism does not stick; there is
no *intention* to construct an SUO only for those who have the requisite
background education, it's rather that there is simply no *option*. The
responsible social tack in light of this is not to dumb down the knowledge
in question (which I believe is all an adaptation will be if it is not
equivalent to KIF), but to increase accessibility to the educational
prerequisites needed for understanding it.
> > > The main benefit I see from a "natural language based SUO" would be a
> > > greater clarity of logical implications of situations and devices (both
> > > physical and conceptual) to the average person across societies and
> > > populations around the globe. I would include in conceptual devices those
> > > that are educational, legal and sociological, so I suggest the benefits
> > > would extend right across society.
> >
> > I wouldn't want to discount any of these. But again, the project you
> > envision is entirely orthogonal to the development of a formal SUO.
>
> GH> I don't agree, but please explain how what I am proposing
> differs from the development of a formal SUO. I am genuinely proposing
> an absolutely precise structure in both semantics and syntax, but one
> that is easily human and machine interpretable, and machine
> executable. What does the project involve that cannot be covered by
> such a structure?
Then I have no idea what you are proposing. KIF is a language with an
absolutely precise syntax and semantics. If you want a language just as
precise, it will not be any more readable to humans, at least not to any
appreciable degree, since what humans have the most trouble with are
exactly the things that a precise syntax and semantics *makes* precise
(e.g., variable binding).
> A small example of the benefits I could see from a "natural language
> based SUO" could be a release from the frustrations of the current
> unintuitive and inconsistent behaviour of Windows, which many of us
> have to tolerate every day.
http://www.linux.org. ;-)
GH> Exactly, but how much market penetration does it have so far?
Well, over 1/4 of the server market, at least, and a growing share of
the desktop. But I get your point.
> GH> I am also reminded of various Unix purists I have come across in
> previous years, who felt that was the way of the future for the ideal
> operating system.
No, the way of the future is simply a *good* operating system that will
satisfy certain desiderata. The desiderata for ontology require a
formal, first-order langauge. Find a prettier face if you can, but I
believe its impact will be negligible. It will either lack sufficient
expressiveness, or it will be no easier to comprehend.
Highest regards,
-chris
--
Christopher Menzel # web: philebus.tamu.edu/~cmenzel
Philosophy, Texas A&M University # net: chris.menzel@tamu.edu
College Station, TX 77843-4237 # vox: (979) 845-8764