SUO: IFF Foundation Ontology
Robert,
Now that the IFF vote is complete I wonder if we could continue this
conversation. Unless I somehow missed your response, could you reply to
the questions below?
Adam
>Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 21:08:46 -0700
>To: "Robert E. Kent" <rekent@ontologos.org>
>From: Adam Pease <apease@ks.teknowledge.com>
>Subject: Re: SUO: Vote 2001-02: IFF Foundation Ontology
>Cc: "SUO" <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
>
>Robert,
> Thanks for your replies. My further comments and questions below:
>
>At 04:53 PM 8/20/2001 -0700, Robert E. Kent wrote:
>
>>Adam,
>>
>>(see the comments below)
>>
>>----- Original Message -----
>>From: "Adam Pease" <apease@ks.teknowledge.com>
>>To: "Robert E. Kent" <rekent@ontologos.org>
>>Cc: "SUO" <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>
>>Sent: Monday, August 20, 2001 3:03 PM
>>Subject: Re: SUO: Vote 2001-02: IFF Foundation Ontology
>>
>>
>> > Robert,
>> > I appreciate the very concrete message. This is exactly the sort of
>> > discussion needed if we're to create an actual standard.
>> >
>> > 1. I notice that you're using sorted quantifiers. That isn't in SUO-KIF
>> > nor the latest KIF group draft that Michael Gruninger has prepared,
>> > although they are in the version at
>> > <http://logic.stanford.edu/kif/dpans.html#6.3>. You don't appear to cite
>> > which version of KIF you're using in your IJCAI paper or proposal for
>> > SUO. Which version do you use?
>>
>>Comment #1:
>>I am anticipating what will be in the new KIF. See Chris Menzel's comment
>>
>> > Looks good to me. I like your restricted quantifiers (and descriptions)
>> > but the syntax for them is not settled. Most likely it will be
>> > something like (<quant> (<var>+ <sentence>*) <sentence>).
>>
>>in a personal message to me. These restricted quantifiers can be taken as
>>simple abbreviations with the obvious expansions: conjoining for the
>>existential quantifiers and anteceding in an implication for the universal
>>quantifier.
>
>thanks for the clarification
>
>> > 2. You've shown below how a natural language sentence could be expressed
>> > in a way consistent with a version of KIF and the IFF. However, it's not
>> > clear (to me at least) what value is being added by IFF itself.
>>
>>Comment #2:
>>The IFF Foundation Ontology defines a rather elaborate semantic mechanism.
>>This example gives an indication of how to translate an ontology expressed
>>in the new KIF to the very precise terminology of the IFF Model Theory
>>(sub)Ontology (to be released in version 3.0 of the IFF Foundation
>>Ontology). Although there are many IFF statements needed to represent the
>>KIF statement, these IFF statements are *extremely simple* (there are
>>neither quantifiers nor logical connectives, just membership assertion and
>>function application). As a result, the IFF representation can easily be
>>represented in standard programming languages.
>
>Could you show an example representation in KIF and then in Java or C or
>some other common language? This seems to me a very strong and
>non-obvious claim. Expressing the semantics of any logical language in a
>procedural programming language seems rather difficult to me.
>
>
>>Once the KIF ontology is
>>internalized in IFF, it then corresponds to one particular formal concept in
>>the truth concept lattice indexed by that ontology's 1st-order language.
>>Meets and joins in this lattice allow us to automatically combine this
>>ontology with any collection of ontologies. For example, if the SUMO
>>were resolved into several meaningful component ontologies, and these were
>>individually translated to the internal IFF representation, then the meet in
>>the truth concept lattice would correspond to the IFF representation of the
>>whole SUMO. Note, a collection of ontologies are inconsistent when their
>>meet is the bottom formal concept.
>
>How would this different from simply concatenating two KIF files and
>checking for a contradiction? How does IFF itself support a merge? As a
>concrete example, let's say we have
>
>------
>file #1
> (instance Adam Person)
>------
>file #2
> (instance Bill Human)
>
>In this trivial case one concatenates the two ontologies and it's a merge
>but a poor one. There's no way to know that Human and Person are
>equivalent unless a human being looks at the two files and makes an
>educated guess. One can imagine more complex cases but the issue for a
>merge is just this ultimately.
>
>> As a second benefit, once an ontology is
>>internalized in IFF, 1st-order interpretations allow us to translate between
>>various truth concept lattices.
>
>Could you explain this in more detail, maybe with an example? I expect
>many folks don't know what a "truth concept lattice" is.
>
>>As a third benefit, we have the opportunity
>>to combine ontologies using colimits. This allows the summation and fusion
>>(quotienting) of ontologies.
>
>Could you provide explanation and an example for this as well.
>
>> As a fourth, more conjectural benefit, Murray
>>Bent (Yang Yun) is interested in defining a lower metalevel module for game
>>semantics. This could possibly correspond to the game-theoretical semantics
>>discussed by John Sowa
>>[http://users.bestweb.net/~sowa/misc/mathw.htm#Model].
>
>That sounds like a useful effort but how is it an example of the utility
>of IFF?
>
>> > You use
>> > the term 'event' in the formalization below but no such term appears in
>> > IFF. In contrast, SUMO does have notions of events (and times, roles of
>> > actors etc) which provide a definition for that term.
>>
>>Comment #3:
>>I am assuming that this example is just a fragment within an ambient
>>ontology,
>>such as the SUMO, that has an "event' term.
>
>Then I would take this either as simply a task that remains for someone to
>merge the SUMO content under the IFF structure, in order to provide the
>ontological content that is relevant for real-world application modeling,
>or as a disadvantage of IFF since it lacks this necessary content.
>
>> > The problem (I would say) with this formulation as well as what you
>>provide
>> > below is that there is no upper ontology being used. The term 'event' is
>> > meaningless because it is just a token with no formal definition. In
>> > contrast, the SUMO formalization would be
>>
>>Same comment #3.
>>
>> > SUMO already has definitions for concepts like Eating, the stuff an object
>> > is made of ('material') etc. Instead of being just tokens, the concepts
>> > have some meaning by virtue of their associated axioms. That's why the
>> > list of statements prior to the formalization of the English example
>> > sentence is so small - all those concepts already exist in SUMO.
>>
>>Same comment #3.
>>
>> > So, in summary, what does the IFF version of the example provide us that
>> > the SUO-KIF-only version does not?
>>
>>Same comment #2.:
>
>Thanks again for the replies. I still haven't understood the advantages
>of IFF but hopefully another round of explanation will get us closer.
>
>ADam
>
>
>>Robert E. Kent
>>rekent@ontologos.org
>
>Adam Pease
>Teknowledge
>(650) 424-0500 x571
Adam Pease
Teknowledge
(650) 424-0500 x571