RE: Directions for SUO: monolithicity and Cyc
Adam,
With regards to your clarification of 'monolithic'.
This seems to be equivocal.
You seem to be suggesting the question is whether "a single coherent
ontology is impossible". As far as I am aware, everyone has agreed that this
should be possible. The issue is whether (how?) different (probably
inconsistent) world views can be included in a "single coherent ontology"
(SCO). There seem to be two kinds of answer:
1) The SCO can be enhanced so that it can 'do' (whatever that means)
whatever the other proposed ontologies can do.
2) The SCO cannot be enhanced to capture the full meaning of the other
proposed ontologies.
I suspect that both 1 and 2 may well be sufficiently true - if you assume
that the SCO is a single ontology, rather than a lattice of ontologies.
If so, and if the goal is to get a SCO, then necessarily this involves
choices about it is constructed - and so some possible options are not
exercised. And the people who hold those options dear excluded.
My general concern is that we should do this process with our eyes open -
cataloguing as far as possible the choices we have made. This will make
other questions about which choice is selected more transparent etc.
You say - "Notwithstanding Pat's paper cataloguing different temporal
theories, there's been very little precise characterization in logic of what
some different theories might be, and how they might be incompatible."
But the choices and their incompatibility are well known and described in
many places - though maybe not in logic. Furthermore I have listed some of
them a number of times.
Regards
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org]On Behalf Of Adam Pease
Sent: 13 March 2001 07:10
To: Michael Uschold; Nicola.Guarino@ladseb.pd.cnr.it;
standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Cc: John.Thompson@PSS.Boeing.com; clarkp@redwood.rt.cs.boeing.com
Subject: Re: Directions for SUO: monolithicity and Cyc
Michael,
This is interesting. I saw Doug just a month ago and he hadn't
mentioned this. Where did he make this announcement? Did he give any
detail about the license he plans to release Cyc under? Will it be truly
open source using the GNU Public License?
If and when portions of Cyc get released, and if the legal framework is
such that it can be used freely, I think it would make great sense to merge
that content with the SUO content at that point.
One point of clarification on different approaches on the SUO I'd like
to make regards the term "monolithic". I think that's a bit too pejorative
a term to characterize what anyone is advocating. My view is simply that
we should *try* to create a single coherent ontology. Although we've had
some very interesting discussion about different approaches, I suspect that
the number of truly incompatible theories, that are themselves useful, are
very few. Notwithstanding Pat's paper cataloguing different temporal
theories, there's been very little precise characterization in logic of
what some different theories might be, and how they might be
incompatible. Until we have clear evidence that a single coherent ontology
is impossible, I think it would be wrong to abandon that goal.
Adam
At 07:45 PM 3/12/2001 -0800, Michael Uschold wrote:
>I'm afraid that I have been unable to get to any SUO mail lately, but
>I did have a peek at this message from Nicola - promoting a non-monolithic
>approach which emphasizes understanding and relating ontologies, rather
than
>agreeing on a single one.
>
>If it turns out that this is agreed by a everyone, this could have a major
>shift in our emphasis and activity.
>
>There is another possibly very important development which I believe we
should
>take into consideration. Doug Lenat recently announced that they will be
>giving away Cyc. There will be a new organization called OpenCyc.org which
>will
>oversee this. They are not going to give it all away at once, because they
>need to have a viable business. Instead, they will give away different
pieces
>with varying amounts of detail. Every quarter, more will be released. The
>first release is scheduled for July 2001. They are trying to get the
balance
>right between giving it away soon enough so that noone is motivated to
build
>their own. It is the only game in town. They do not want to give stuff
>away so
>soon, that every company who might do business with Cyc will just wait,
rather
>than pay for early access. This way, Cyc will defacto be the worlds
standard
>UO and common sense Knowledge Base. They are using the Linux model for
open
>software, as their main starting point - adapting only insofar as there are
>important differences between software and a KB.
>
>How does this affect the SUO effort? For those that advocate a
non-monolithic
>approach, it Cyc will merely become one of those that need to be
>available, and
>related to other ontologies. For those advocating a monolithic one single
SUO,
>it can have much greater import.
>
> >From time to time, people have said, why do we need another UO, when we
> already
>have Cyc. Well, Cyc existed, but it was not really avaliable. This was an
>excellent reason, to continue to pursue SUO. However, now that it WILL be
>available, a very loooooong time before this group is likely to come up
with a
>viable alternative, it raises the question in a new light: Why build
another
>SUO if we have Cyc?
>
>I belive that before much more energy goes into building our SUO, 'we'
should
>instead do a systematic and thorough investigation of CYC, and answer the
>above
>question. The answer might be, there is no reason to build another
>UO. Alternatively, it should take the form of a thorough critique of Cyc
>indicating the shortcomings, and why it is insufficient (if it is) and how
it
>needs to be augmented or replaced by a 'real' SUO..
>
>An alternative thread of activity can be as Nicola recommends, to spend
time
>relating alternatives, and work towards a library of reference ontologies,
one
>of which will be Cyc.
>
>Mike Uschold
>
>PS PLEASE include me explicitly on any responses on this topic to ensure
>that I
>will look at it promptly. Otherwise it will may remain unopened along with
a
>sea of other SUO messages.
-----------------
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571