Re: SUO: Semantic interoperability
On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 01:30:04PM -0600, Bill Andersen wrote:
>
> On 12/5/01 12:37, "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote:
>
>
> [Sowa]
> > On the NCITS L8 mailing list, there was some discussion of how
> > the term "semantic interoperability" might be defined. Someone
> > suggested a defintion taken from a standards document, which I
> > criticized as a big fuzzy cloud of words. I'm sending a copy
> > of that note to the SUO list because such a definition is also
> > necessary for defining conformance for any system that uses
> > an ontology.
> >
> > [deleted stuff]
> >
> > Bottom line: If you want to have a definition that is independent
> > of a particular implementation, you need logic or some sugar-coated
> > substitute for logic, such as SQL or a controlled natural language.
> >
> > John Sowa
>
> John,
>
> Good for you! This is exactly the kind of bread-and-butter topic which
> needs to be thoroughly hashed out in this (and other) groups. For some
> reason people seem inclined to avoid pinning down exactly what it means to
> be "semantically interoperable".
>
> Perhaps one reason is the mentioned requirement for logic. Whatever such a
> definition will look like, it's going to take more than FOL to express it.
Hi Bill,
If 'semantic' is to be stressed, then whether something is defined in a
FOL language or in another one shouldn't matter as much as whether the
definitions are (provably) logically equivalent. Generally, this points
toward some sort of model theory as being the 'medium' of translation.
Higher-order stuff can always be defined in 1st order set theory.
> I will think about this (and I encourage others to as well) and will post a
> response as soon as I have something reasonable to say.
It's very possible that I'm saying nothing reasonable because I can't
find docs where 'sem. interoperability' is discussed. Do you have
pointers to share? Thanks,
> .bill
>
> --
> Bill Andersen
> Chief Scientist, Ontology Works
> 1132 Annapolis Road, Suite 104
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