RE: SUO: conformance
Dear John,
That sounds sensible, but could you give an explicit small
example please?
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
> Sent: 11 October 2001 03:49
> To: Adam Pease
> Cc: Frank Farance; Standard Upper Ontology
> Subject: Re: SUO: conformance
>
>
>
> Adam,
>
> AP> How does one go about finding a model for which we can test if our
> > theory(ies) is true? Does one do that with a first order
> logic theorem
> > prover like OTTER? Or are there other automated tools for this?
>
> If you are given an abstract collection of axioms, the only way
> to find a model is by blind search -- using a theorem prover.
>
> But for most scientific theories, the axioms were derived by
> observing a set of examples {C1, C2, ..., Cn} and generalizing
> them to find common features. Therefore, the axioms should be
> true of each example from which they were derived. Any one
> of the examples Ci would therefore be suitable as a model.
>
> Since the SUMO developers are writing axioms by hand, they
> can also write specifications of models by hand, as they
> go along. Following is the procedure:
>
> 1. For any subject domain (or SUMO module), select a set
> of examples from that domain: {C1,...,Cn}.
>
> 2. Define predicates that will be used to describe those
> examples, and write descriptions for each of the
> examples {D1,...,Dn} using those predicates.
>
> 3. Look for suitable axioms by searching for commonalities
> in the collection of descriptions.
>
> 4. If every proposed axiom is true of every description, then
> any or all of the descriptions are suitable as models of
> those axioms.
>
> This is not an automated procedure, but it is a good exercise
> that can be done by the same people who are writing the axioms.
>
> John Sowa
>