SUO: Re: Ballot Comment
>Pat and others,
>
>Thanks. An interesting comment. Since it was rather brief, I may be
>mistaking its meaning. However, let me give it a shot (fools rush in ...).
>
>The act of determining "which of the many available options to choose during
>the construction of an upper ontology" would seem to involve an evaluation.
>Now evaluation data is content of a normative kind. But it is still content,
>and could be encoded in an object-level ontology describing evaluations --
>what they are, who is authorized to make them, to what objects they should
>be applied, and how to make the application.
Well, it COULD (maybe- see below) but why bother? The primary goal is
to design an upper ontology, not an ontology of ontology evaluations.
I don't see how formalising our own decision-making in one of the
formalisms between which we are trying to decide is likely to be
helpful in reaching a consensus.
In any case, Im not at all sure whether we could in fact adequately
represent normative judgements in a descriptive framework. (It might
be fun to try, but it would be a research effort, I think.)
>A descriptive ontology would
>try to explain how things are, whereas a normative ontology would try to
>tell us how things ought to be.
Quite. Not the same thing, right?
>For example, there might exist a normative kind of ontology that describes
>the evaluation of ontologies for different purposes, After all, ontologies
>are objects too.
Yes, but so are all kinds of things that we probably don't want to
have to deal with right away, like quantum field effects and tropes
and God knows what else.
>The IFF approach would involve, amongst other things, an
>ability to combine ontologies in many different ways. Then the "methodology
>for determining which of the many available options to choose during the
>construction of an upper ontology" might involved the suitable combination
>of an evaluation ontology with the ontologies being evaluated.
Ah, now, that does make sense, I agree. But that isnt what was put to
the vote, right? What we were asked to vote on was whether or not to
adopt it "with the intent of developing it into the final SUO
document", ie as an alternative candidate FOR BEING THE SUO ITSELF,
not for providing a meta-theory for evaluating options for the SUO.
When people insist on putting things to votes, it is very important
to read the fine print.
Pat Hayes
>
>What do you think?
>
>Robert E. Kent
>rekent@ontologos.org
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Schoening, James R CECOM DCSC4I"
><James.Schoening@mail1.monmouth.army.mil>
>To: "Standard-Upper-Ontology (E-mail)" <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
>Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:44 PM
>Subject: SUO: Ballot Comment
>
>
> >
> > >
> > >2. This message is to ballot the question, as proposed by Robert Kent:
> > >
> > >"Should the IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working Group commence
> > work
> > >on the IFF Foundation Ontology version 1.0 [July 20, 2001] posted at
> > >http://suo.ieee.org/Kent-IFF.pdf, with the intent of developing it into
>the
> > >final SUO document?
> >
> >
> > NO.
> > Comment. The document is inappropriate as a foundation because it
> > does not provide any clear methodology for determining which of the
> > many available options to choose during the construction of an upper
> > ontology. Also, in my (personal) view, it is much too mathematically
> > oriented to be suitable as a useable upper ontological framework.
> >
> > Pat Hayes
> >
> >
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