Re: SUO: RE: Re: Re: Conformance (actually, "standardsprofiles")
Adam,
Pardon me if I misunderstood your point or if I missed critical
information delivered earlier, that went lost in the sea of quotation.
Based on this post, it seems to me that you would end up requiring
people 'conforming' to the SUO to commit themselves to a rather strong
use of the standard. Hastily put, it seems that the effect could be to
forbid almost any use of the standard that would not be
_further_development_ of the standard, or to put it another way, that
you would not allow richer ontologies than the SUO as conformant. By
'richer', I don't just mean more detailed, but precisely including terms
not defined according to your {#1} and {#2] criteria, or which
definition could not be reduced in such fashion. So, anecdotically, note
that I don't take a "standard upper ontology" to be the (a?) universal,
all-categories-embrassing ontology.
As far as I can see, conforming to a standard obtains merely whenever
one's use of the standard do not contradict or misuse the standard, say
SUO. Allowing conformance of an ontology with terms that are not
primitive terms of the SUO and are not defined in terms of the SUO
doesn't seems to endanger this criterion, does it?
Couldn't your first and second clauses be bundled up together so that
whenever [#1] or [#2] holds, [#3] is required to obtain as well? While,
in parallel, provided it is established that the additional material
does not 'conform' in the sense of [#1]-[#2](-[#3]), this additional
material would indeed be trivially conformant, correct me if I'm grossly
mistaken. Indeed all the sweat will be in convincing oneself that terms
are not definable in terms of the SUO (i.e., an equivalent term
conforming in the [#1]-[#2](-[#3]) sense of conformance cannot stand in
place of this alleged new term).
Maybe I've learnt your language using a not so 'posh' dictionnary but it
looks to me that the kind of criteria you're aiming at are more criteria
for endorsing the SUO (which presumably supposes conforming to it) that
conformance itself. Imhu criteria for conformance could and should be
weaker than for endorsement.
yours,
Pierre
Adam Pease wrote:
>
> Folks,
> If one were allowed to create new terms and not define them in terms of
> existing SUO terms, and further that one was allowed to create terms with
> different names but the same definitions as existing SUO terms, what value
> would conformance have? In such a situation any ontology could be said to
> conform to SUO.
> As a concrete example of the effect of eliminating clauses [#1] and
> [#2], I could create classes A, B and C with B and C as subclasses of
> A. If we take SUMO or IFF as the supposed standard, this ontology could be
> said to conform to both since those terms are not required to be defined
> using existing SUMO or IFF terms. Conformance would be meaningless.
>
> Adam
>
> At 08:29 AM 10/23/2001 -0700, John.Velman@HSC.com wrote:
>
> >Matthew,
> >
> >Well put. Both your answer to Seth, and your answer to Adam.
> >
> >John Velman
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >"West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE" <Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>
> >@majordomo.ieee.org on 10/23/2001 07:43:31 AM
> >
> >Please respond to "West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE"
> > <Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>
> >
> >Sent by: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> >
> >
> >To: "'Adam Pease'" <apease@ks.teknowledge.com>, "'Seth Russell'"
> > <seth@robustai.net>, Frank Farance <frank@farance.com>,
> > standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> >cc: SWAG <swag-dev@yahoogroups.com>
> >
> >Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: Re: Conformance (actually, "standards profiles")
> >
> >
> >
> >Dear Adam,
> >
> >I agree this is what you proposed, but I think it
> >stretches conformance too far, and so I disagree
> >with this part of your proposal. You could for
> >example argue about whether something conformed
> >or not. At this point there is no point to
> >talking about conformance.
> >
> >
> >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: Adam Pease [mailto:apease@ks.teknowledge.com]
> > > Sent: 23 October 2001 15:23
> > > To: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE; 'Seth Russell'; Frank Farance;
> > > standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> > > Cc: SWAG
> > > Subject: Re: SUO: RE: Re: Re: Conformance (actually, "standards
> > > profiles")
> > >
> > >
> > > Matthew,
> > > One minor correction is that the conformance clause that I
> > > proposed
> > > (with subsequent discussion on this list), does have
> > > something to say about
> > > the terms that one makes up. It requires that those terms be
> > > 'defined' (in
> > > a layman's sense, not the strict logical sense because many
> > > 'definitions'
> > > will be necessary but not sufficient) using terms from the
> > > standard. If
> > > the terms one makes up are redundant with existing terms that
> > > simply have a
> > > different name, I think that would be non-conforming as well,
> > > although I
> > > now realize that my proposed conformance clause doesn't specifically
> > > address that.
> > >
> > > Adam
> > >
> > > - Implementations of SUO are "ontologies" or "information models".
> > > - A conforming implementation is an ontology or
> > > information model that:
> > > [#1] Uses terms as defined by the SUO, or
> > > [#2] Uses terms that are defined (using SUO-KIF)
> > > entirely by other
> > > terms in the SUO
> > > [#3] Is consistent: a contradiction cannot be derived by means
> > > of first-order logic from the set of statements belonging to the
> > > implementation and the SUO.
> > >
> > >
> > > At 04:00 PM 10/23/2001 +0200, West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE wrote:
> > >
> > > >Dear Seth,
> > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > From: "West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE" <Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com>
> > > > >
> > > > > > > Yes I think think standards profiles would work and might be
> > > > > > > quite eligant.
> > > > > > > Are these profiles chosen by the user, or prescribed by the
> > > > > > > standards body?
> > > > > > > I prefer the former. But I really should recuse myself
> > > > > from further
> > > > > > > discussion of standards as I don't even believe in
> > > > > creating a standard
> > > > > > > ontology. I just want a dictionary in which to look up terms
> > > > > > > such that
> > > > > > > others will understand what I am trying to say.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > MW: But that is what a standard is ... something that is
> > > > > used by a lot
> > > > > > of people.
> > > > >
> > > > > Ok, I agree. Then the meaning of conformance is that you are
> > > > > speaking using
> > > > > only the dictionary definition of the words. But then can
> > > > > you make up your
> > > > > own words? ... because those made up words would not be in
> > > > > the dictionary
> > > > > and hence not in conformance?
> > > >
> > > >MW: It is more neutral than that. The only thing that definitely
> > > >does not conform is using the terms in the dictionary with a
> > > >different meaning. Conformance has nothing to say about the terms
> > > >you make up.
> > > > >
> > > > > Seth Russell
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >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
> > >
> > > Adam Pease
> > > Teknowledge
> > > (650) 424-0500 x571
> > >
>
> Adam Pease
> Teknowledge
> (650) 424-0500 x571