RE: RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment
Pat,
At 12:53 PM 8/28/2001 -0700, pat hayes wrote:
>>Pat,
>> I agree with you that a function that maps things to their temporal
>> subparts would be better than reifying the temporal subpart. Thanks
>> also for the reference. I've ordered a copy.
>> Since creating a temporal subpart doesn't actually conflict with any
>> axiom in SUMO I don't see the problem that you're pointing out below.
>
>Do you mean, you don't understand it because SUMO doesn't have an
>conflict? What I don't understand is how you are going to explain to a
>potential user of SUMO what a 'physical object' is. An ontology isn't just
>a set of axioms: it is also a perspective on how to extend and utilise
>those axioms to create other, new, axioms. Users need to be able to
>understand what the overall perspective is, so you need to be able to say
>what it is.
Maybe I'm just feeling mischievous today, but this is too good to pass
up. In an earlier message you said "What that English text ought to say is
that this is what the formal strings are *intended* to mean. What they
*actually* mean, if anything, is whatever can be inferred by a valid
first-order reasoner from the axioms that are provided, and that is ALL.
All the rest is hope and aspirations and hand-waving. " (full message
copied below).
Now, ribbing aside, I do agree with you that in a formal sense, the only
meaning that terms have is there axioms, as well as the fact that since
that any ontology should be built with "elaboration tolerance" (a la
McCarthy) that allows it to be elaborated and that having some consistent
intent (which has not yet been formally specified) that doesn't hamstring
that elaboration is needed.
>>The approach is different in some broad sense but if it doesn't cause an
>>actual problem with specific inferences I don't think it's a problem in
>>practice. And the change I'm proposing does have, at least on the
>>surface, a benefit of allowing both the 3d and 4d enthusiasts to model
>>things as they wish in SUMO.
>
>It doesn't allow the endurantists (3-d enthusiasts) to model things as
>THEY wish. See my earlier message for details.
You're moving too fast for me. I need to spend some time with your
previous message. No more jibes please, I need time to regroup! :-)
Adam
>Pat
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>(650)859 6569 w
>(650)494 3973 h (until September)
>phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571
>X-Sender: phayes@mail.coginst.uwf.edu
>Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 12:23:07 -0700
>To: Adam Pease <apease@ks.teknowledge.com>
>From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
>Subject: Re: SUO: Vote 2001-02: IFF Foundation Ontology
>Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org,
> "Chris Menzel" <cmenzel@philebus.tamu.edu>,
> "Yang Yun" <yangyun@metacrawler.com>,
> "Robert E. Kent" <rekent@ontologos.org>, "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>
>
>>Robert,
>> One way to help show the relevance and accessibility of the IFF
>> ontology would be to give some examples of how to code the information
>> expressed in common English statements in IFF.
>> I did something similar in the series of "Hamlet" examples in the
>> message copied below, as well as the dialog with Josiane Caron-Pargue
>> also copied below.
>
>Adam, let me take you up on this, since you obligingly give concrete
>examples. You say that you are showing how to encode information expressed
>in common English statements. What I see, however, are some formal names
>(which are really only character strings as they stand) plus a few axioms,
>mostly just placing these in some kind of classification heirarchy (named
>with other character strings), plus some attached English text which makes
>some very bold statements about what those character strings 'mean'. What
>that English text ought to say is that this is what the formal strings are
>*intended* to mean. What they *actually* mean, if anything, is whatever
>can be inferred by a valid first-order reasoner from the axioms that are
>provided, and that is ALL. All the rest is hope and aspirations and
>hand-waving.
>
>As documentation of the intentions of the ontology designers, and as a
>guide for those who extend the ontology in enough detail so that it might
>actually come some way to realizing the aspirations of its designers, such
>pieces of 'guiding prose' are valuable and indeed essential; I do not mean
>to suggest that writing these things is easy or pointless. But this
>process of documenting one's thoughts (no matter how precise they are) in
>English paragraphs is not in itself the creation of an ontology, and does
>not create any actual formal content.
>
>The problem with this particular area, as you may know, is that some of
>the best minds have conspicuously failed to come up with usable, broadly
>accepted, precise theories of what 'intentionality' is, or what 'content'
>might be when applied to things like works of fiction; so the gap between
>asserting that something means:
>
>"An instance of &%Physical that &%represents something else. Note that
>this is an intentional relation - instances of &%Physical that
>accidentally convey some meaning to an &%Agent would not be examples of
>&%Representations."
>
>and actually writing logical axioms that capture the English meanings of
>"represents", "convey meaning" and "intentional", is likely to be rather
>large. But without those axioms, to claim that one has 'coded the
>information' is just plain wrong.
>
>Pat
>
>PS. On another matter, you and Josiane may find it illuminating to review
>the writings of Melissa Bowerman, eg
>Bowerman, M. (1996). Learning how to structure space for language: A
>crosslinguistic perspective. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M.F.
>Garrett (Eds.), Language and space
>(pp. 385-436). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
>but see also the website of the Nijmegen MaxPlanckInstitute (look under
>'space' in the annual reports)
>
>PPS. A few more comments/questions are inserted into the later text.
>
>>
>>>Folks,
>>> We had some discussion a few months back about how to represent and
>>>relate informational content of books and performances. Ian and I
>>>discussed this topic again, relative to the semiotics terms he sent out
>>>to the list recently. The examples I suggested below can now be
>>>formalized as follows
>>>
>>>Hamlet the fictional character
>>>(instance-of Hamlet Human)
>
>What distinguishes real humans from fictional humans? Did Hamlet have a
>(fictional) liver, for example? What about things like Peter Pan and Barney?
>
>>>Hamlet an edition of the printed play
>>>(subclass-of Hamlet-FolgerEdition ContentBearingObject)
>>>(subclass-of Hamlet-ScribnerEdition Hamlet-FolgerEdition)
>>>(equivalentContentClass Hamlet-ScribnerEdition Hamlet-FolgerEdition)
>>>(instance-of Hamlet-ScribnerEditionOnMyBookshelf Hamlet-ScribnerEdition)
>>>(containsInformation Hamlet-ScribnerEditionOnMyBookshelf Hamlet-ThePlay)
>>>
>>>A performance of Hamlet
>>>(instance-of HamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>Activity)
>>>(instance-of HamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>ContentBearingProcess)
>>>(realization-of HamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>Hamlet-ThePlay)
>>>
>>>A performance of Hamlet captured on video and encoded as a bit stream
>>>(instance-of
>>>VideotapeOfHamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>ContentBearingObject)
>>>(refers-to
>>>VideotapeOfHamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>HamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000)
>>>(instance-of
>>>BitStreamOfHamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>ContentBearingPhysical)
>>>(equivalentContentInstance
>>>VideotapeOfHamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000
>>>BitStreamOfHamletPerformanceByRoyalShakespeareCompanyOnJune18-2000)
>>>
>>>The text of Hamlet as character strings
>>>(subclass-of Hamlet-CharacterStrings ContentBearingObject)
>>>
>>>What Fritz Lehmann has called a "conceptual work" - the timeless
>>>informational content of the play
>>>(instance-of Hamlet-ThePlay Proposition)
>
>Proposition??? (Is Hamlet true or false?)
>
>>>Note that these examples suggest four new semiotics notions, which can be
>>>defined as follows:
>
>Again, these aren't *definitions*.
>
>>
>>>(subclass-of Representation Physical)
>>>(documentation Representation "An instance of &%Physical that
>>>&%represents something else. Note that this is an intentional relation -
>>>instances of &%Physical that accidentally convey some meaning to an &%Agent
>>>would not be examples of &%Representations.")
>
>Intentionality is a VERY tricky concept; but in any case, if you are going
>to involve the intentions, shouldn't the person who had the intention -
>the composer of the representation - be involved in the definition somewhere?
>
>>>(=>
>>> (instance-of ?OBJ Representation)
>>> (exists (?ENTITY)
>>> (represents ?OBJ ?ENTITY)))
>>>
>>>(subclass-of ContentBearingProcess Representation)
>>>(relatedInternalConcept ContentBearingObject realization-of)
>>>(documentation ContentBearingProcess "Any &%Process that expresses a
>>>&%Proposition. It is important to distinguish &%Propositions from the
>>>&%ContentBearingProcesses that express them. A &%Proposition is a piece of
>>>information, e.g. that the cat is on the mat, but a &%ContentBearingProcess
>>>is
>>>an &%Process that realizes this information. A &%Proposition is an
>>>abstraction
>>>that may have multiple representations: performances, sounds, bit streams,
>>>etc.")
>>>
>>>(=>
>>> (instance-of ?PROCESS ContentBearingProcess)
>>> (exists (?PROP)
>>> (realization-of ?PROCESS ?PROP)))
>
>Great. I was going to ask you what you meant by "realizes" in the English
>prose, and I find that it is an undefined term in the axiom as well. (What
>is to stop me understanding 'realization-of' to refer to, say, equality?
>That would make your (sole) axiom true.)
>
>>>(subrelation-of equivalentContentInstance subsumesContentInstance)
>>>(instance-of equivalentContentInstance EquivalenceRelation)
>>>(nth-domain equivalentContentInstance 1 Representation)
>>>(nth-domain equivalentContentInstance 2 Representation)
>>>(documentation equivalentContentInstance "A binary relation between two
>>>instances of Representation. '(equivalentContent ?OBJ1 ?OBJ2)' means that
>>>the content expressed by ?OBJ1 is identical with the content expressed by
>>>?OBJ2. An example would be the relationship between a handwritten draft of
>>>a letter to my lawyer and a typed copy of the same letter.
>
>How about a translation of the letter into Spanish?
>
>>>Note that
>>>'(equivalentContentInstance ?OBJ1 ?OBJ2)' implies '(subsumesContent ?OBJ1
>>>?OBJ2)' and '(subsumesContent ?OBJ2 ?OBJ2)'.")
>>>
>>>(instance-of subsumesContentInstance PartialOrderingRelation)
>>>(nth-domain subsumesContentInstance 1 Representation)
>>>(nth-domain subsumesContentInstance 2 Representation)
>>>(documentation subsumesContent "A binary relation between two instances of
>>>Representation. '(subsumesContent ?OBJ1 ?OBJ2)' means that the content
>>>expressed by ?OBJ1 contains the content expressed by ?OBJ2.
>
>??But what does that mean? I have no idea what it means to say that one
>content 'contains' another. Do you mean 'entails', ie the subsumed can be
>inferred from the subsumer?
>
>>>An example is
>>>the relationship between a handwritten poem and one of its stanzas.
>
>You mean between the handwritten text of the poem and the subtext of one
>of its stanzas, right? But that's an easy case, since you have divided the
>physical thing in a way that corresponds to a conceptual division. What
>happens if I tear a letter into strips, rendering each piece illegible:
>does the content of the letter subsume that of one strip?
>
>It would be better to come up with a kind of simple mereology *of content
>itself* (ie what it means for one piece of content - proposition? - to be
>'part' of another), I think, and then define the physical relations in
>terms of the induced content relations. You could probably get a long way
>with a very simple theory of content as a kind of abstract stuff, and
>apply simple mereology to it. It would differ from the stuff described by
>normal mereology only by having no physical properties but a special
>relationship (being 'about') to parts of a possible physical world.
>
>Pat Hayes
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>(650)859 6569 w
>(650)494 3973 h (until September)
>phayes@ai.uwf.edu
><http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes>http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
></blockquote></x-html>
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571