Re: SUO: The Story So Far - Request for vote
>Another approach that has proved to be highly workable in
>modern science and engineering is to have a limited number
>(ideally one) very general theory, such as quantum electro-
>dynamics (QED), of which everything else is a special case.
>For most applications, an engineer uses whichever special case
>fits the problem at hand, but every one of them can be derived
>as an approximation to QED.
John, Im sorry to be blunt, but this is complete nonsense. Almost
nothing in any field of human endeavor, including most of physics,
can be derived from quantum electrodynamics, even by approximation.
The physical properties of potter's clay cannot be derived from QED.
I think the most complex system that has been fully analysed using
QED consisted of a few dozen atoms. Most of 'naive physics' cannot be
derived from classical physics, let alone QED, and much of the rest
of human expertise - law, social science, the arts, agriculture,
psychology, biology, you name it - cannot even be usefully connected
with physics, let alone derived from it.
> >Ideally, the SUO interface should offer the new user a "menu"
> >of i) well-documented, ii) reasonably formalized, and iii)
> >sufficiently agreed on ontological choices to choose from. On the
> >basis of this choice, the interface would select the right set of SUO
> >modules.
>
>I disagree with this approach because there is no common
>upper level that can be used to resolve conflicts. In science,
>QED serves as the top level, with special cases for plumbers,
>electricians, farmers, and auto mechanics. If there are cases
>where they have to interact (say a farm tractor that uses the
>global positioning system for plowing the fields), there is
>always a more general theory that can be used to negotiate
>the interfaces.
You seem to be saying that the way that a farmer and a biochemist
would communicate is through quantum electrodynamics, which is
obviously bunkum. If you are not saying that, I apologise; but then
what are you saying?
> >Moreover, the non-monolithic architecture is the only way to
> >guarantee the high coverage of our initiative, which otherwise would
> >necessarily exclude important players. For example, consider the
> >community of so-called "linguistic" ontologies, explicitly
> >"dismissed" by the recent Pat's messages...
>
>Although I largely agree with Pat on the nature of the
>fundamental ontology (something like Whitehead's process
>ontology in 4D),
I didnt say it was *fundamental*, I said that I *liked* it. Others
may like other ways of thinking, and I wouldn't want to deprive
anyone of a frame of mind they find useful.
>I disagree with the speed with which Pat
>dismisses ordinary language.
That 'speed' is the considered endproduct of quite a few years effort
and experience, if I may be permitted a little chest-beating here.
(It is also in part based on having spent periods of my life in a
state of aphasia, which is when I realised that being deprived of
language has no effect on ones ability to think.)
>See my response to Aldo G.
>in a previous note: the ordinary language of the potter is
>more compatible with what Pat and I have been proposing than
>the highly specialized identity conditions that Nicola suggests.
The LANGUAGE of the potter is fine. However, if one uses that kind of
language as a guide to how to write detailed axioms, they will
rapidly come to grief. Human natural langauge evolved to support
communication between intelligent human beings in complex
social/physical situations, localized in space and time. Ontology
formalisms must encode all the knowledge that is presupposed in such
human communication explicitly, in a framework which can support
rigorously deductive inference and re-use knowledge across a wide
range of circumstances. The two 'niches' are fundamentally different,
and place sharply divergent pressures on the languages required.
People can, and often do, say things to one another like: "Know what
I mean?", with a fair confidence that the appropriate answer is:
"Yes, or at least well enough to manage for now". No such casualness
is permissible in an ontology. Using intuitions from one world to
guide the design of the other is a dangerous business and should not
be done casually. The current lamentably confused state of the merged
upper ontology illustrates this, in my view.
Pat Hayes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC (850)434 8903 home
40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax
phayes@ai.uwf.edu
http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes