Re: SUO: OpenCyc as SUO starter document
At 4:04 PM -0600 3/1/02, Bill Andersen wrote:
>With respect to monolithicity, could some of those (Leo, John) explain
>exactly what you mean by it? The OntoClean stuff of Guarino & Welty, for
>example, can certainly be considered monolithic in some sense. Now, Doug
>McDavid told me it is not these kind of distinctions he's worried about when
>he complained about "monolithic" approaches but rather middle-level entities
>like "Organization". That makes sense to me - I think it will be hard to
>legislate such things, unless there is a context mechanism built-in as Leo
>suggests.
I have a tendency to do this, inherited down a chain of academics,
but below is the dictionary definition of monolithic. I tend to
think of meaning 1a, ie a single HUGE or MASSIVE entity. In that
sense, OntoClean is absolutely not intended to be monolithic, quite
the opposite in fact.
1 a : of, relating to, or resembling a monolith : HUGE, MASSIVE b (1)
: formed from a single crystal <a monolithic silicon chip> (2) :
produced in or on a monolithic chip <a monolithic circuit>
2 a : cast as a single piece <a monolithic concrete wall> b : formed
or composed of material without joints or seams <a monolithic floor
covering> <a monolithic furnace lining> c : consisting of or
constituting a single unit
3 a : constituting a massive undifferentiated and often rigid whole
<a monolithic society> b : exhibiting or characterized by often
rigidly fixed uniformity <monolithic party unity>
--
Christopher A. Welty http://www.cs.vassar.edu/faculty/welty/
Vassar College Computer Science Dept. Voice: (845) 437-5992
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0462 Fax: (845) 437-7498