SUO: *Date 06 Mar 2002 -- Motley Topics
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
BA = Bill Andersen
JA = Jon Awbrey
JS = John Sowa
MP = Mike Pool
MW = Matthew West
NC = Nino Cocchiarella
Item 1. Content, Form, Function
MP: Thank you for your considered reply to my question.
I'm afraid that I'm still a bit perplexed, see below.
JA: I meant to get back to these observations that
John Sowa made, because I think that they are
critically important to the proper conception
of our task:
JS: This raises the question of what we can standardize if
we are not standardizing content. The answer is form:
we should be focusing on formal ways of organizing all
the ontological resources that are available, including
SUMO, OpenCyc, IMPS, WordNet, EDR, etc.
JS: IFF is an effort in that direction, but it has not been tested on
actual content and applications. Having at least two rich content
ontologies, such as OpenCyc and SUMO, should bring to the fore the
question of how they can be mixed, matched, and used together.
JS: I would like to open up all the other sources
of content for consideration in this mélange.
JA: I would add these observations.
JA: Drawing the distinction between form and content is important
because it is the line between what is our business and what
is not our business. We simply have no business trying to
redo the work of content experts and domain specialists.
MP: I would appreciate it if you (Jon) and/or John Sowa could flesh out
this alleged content-form distinction a little bit; I'm afraid that
I don't find the word processor analogy sufficiently helpful.
JA: I will try to flesh out the way that I see the issues here,
since I don't yet know how well I got what John was saying.
JA: I have been reflecting on my experiences with "content experts" in a wide variety
of fields, from times when I used to do all sorts of comp/dat/stats work in many
different academic, applied, education, and research settings, and I am trying
to focus on thinking about what it was exactly that those folks really needed,
and what they clearly did not need, and along with my ruminating about that,
I am trying to diagnose the gaps between the varieties of "solutions" that
I learned at school and the actual problems that anybody had in practice.
JA: The Concept Processor ~~ Word Processor ~~ Statistical Package metaphor is
one that I have always used as a way of drawing a line between the "content"
and the "architecture" of formats and functions that make up the system that
one uses to work with this content. The taxonomies that "contented" users or
domain experts already have on hand, or ever plan to fiddle with, are like the
documents that we use a WP to write or the data sets that we use a SP to analyze.
JA: The basic point is that end users do not need us to create the domain ontologies
for them -- they will treat that as so much dumb clip-art -- since they take quite
a bit of fussy and even indignant pride in being the ones to do that for themselves.
The rule here is not "keep it short and simple" (KISAS) but "knowing your stuff" (KYS).
And I can tell you that, when it comes to topic areas that I myself have spent 2 or 3
decades studying, like graph theory or semiotics, the efforts of ontological novices
to dictate axioms is just bound to be somewhere between infuriating and ridiculous.
And as far as some of the vacuous concepts that we have seen being bandied about
the forum here, like "abstract", "entity", "physical", "top", well, ...
JA: So if we are going to have any use at all here, it had better be something else.
One of the things that frequently comes to my mind in this connection is the task
of finding "primitives more primitive than the primitives in previous prehensions".
These "underwhelming primitives" (UP's) would be called "upper predicates" by some,
but to my way of thinking one always finds them by digging deeper, into the grounds
of assumed solidity that most people are presently taking far too much for granted.
But this is a very difficult analytic, critical, reflective task, one that requires
very different kinds of logical utilities than most people would have in mind under
the run of the mill variety of theorem provers running about the logical farm today.
MP: To my mind there's not much in an ontology that is strictly form.
JA: I am guessing that this view can only arise from not
having seen a sufficient number of formal variations.
MP: Well since you won't tell me what you mean by 'form' I don't know
whether this is correct or not. Give me an example of a formal
variation, a formal variation of what? You were suggesting
that the SUO provide no content, only form. I had no idea
what this amounted to and was trying my own intuitions
about the meaning of 'form' in this context.
Form. Calls to mind Aristotle's distinction of form and matter, and
maybe entelechy makes three, a synthetic tertium quid, or maybe not.
Perhaps it would be called "abstract" versus "physical" hereabouts,
but Aristotle's discussion of their relation and synthesis was far
in advance of most things I've heard about abstract versus physical
in this forum, and he was far too subtle to put them in exclusive
opposition this way.
I am not sure how much we should be meddling in "content", taken in
the usual sense of "content knowledge", that is, "domain expertise".
But I am sure that some people here should not be meddling in this,
or writing axioms about content domains with which they have neither
any expert acquaintance nor even a minimal appreciation of how these
axioms are applied in actual practice by those who use them everyday.
Formal variations. Speaking randomly, just off the top of my head to mention
some existential options that I have fretted over for quite a numbre of years:
All the various models of computation, the last time that I took a survey course,
there were 10 or 11 -- combinator calculus, lambda calculus, Post production systems,
register machines, turing machines, ..., those are the ones that I mostly worry about.
All proved equivalent so far, but with vast differences in the ways that they help us
to understand this or that aspect of computability. This in turn bears on a long-term
quest, to integrate the declarative qualitative faculties of logic with the functional,
procedural, quantitative facilities of the rest of maths, stats, and information science.
Variations in form and variations under a form are what category theory is about.
And so the mix that we form between category theory and ordinary presentations
of logic and set theory is one of the most signficant formal variations that
we have to consider in the mix, or what would be better, the mixer that we
try to deliver.
MP: I thought that by 'form' you might mean concepts whose denoting terms are
often used as the syntactic building blocks for formal represesentation, e.g.,
logical connectors plus equality, membership and subset relations, but your
perplexity at my suggestion below suggests that this isn't what you meant.
Instead you mean something like "architecture of form and function" and
the formats available for representing knowledge. I afraid that I still
don't know what this means.
My perplexity was more due, if I remember right,
to what seemed to be your automatic assumption
that there was only one way to do these things.
MP: Let me try out another possibility. Are you asking for an interface
for ontology construction and browsing? That's a reasonable suggestion,
although I'd claim that such a gui requires some upper ontology content
to make it work.
I am talking about an interface between the world and the prospective content,
that is, an analytic interface for creating ontological theories out of raw data.
Of course, it will always be more like a mix of previous ontologies and incoming
raw data, but if this "ontology utility" is not capable of juggling many differnt
ontological ball in the air at once, not capable of comparing them on a somewhat
level playing field, and not capable of helping us to reflect and criticize our
own ever-residual biases and lacks of ontological neutrality, then it is likely
to constitute more of an obstacular monoclonal monolith than a viable instrument.
MP: If I was a domain expert and wanted to describe some process
in auto mechanics this would be very difficult to do if the
system had no notion of "process" or "instrument", etc.
And if you are a quantum grease momkey, but your diagnostic instru-mentality
has a cast in stone notion of atoms versus waves, then what good will it be?
MP: That aside, suggesting that the SUO focus on gui design or construction
seems unreasonable. This isn't something that one designs and constructs
in an IEEE standards group, is it? Similarly (?) designing an effective
word processor likely requires little input from a standards group.
Standards bodies do write specs & reqs for all sorts things, do they not?
If it does not make sense for this one to write specs & reqs for fields
like combinatorics, linguistics, programming, philosophy, semiotics,
you name it -- and I can tell you that it does not -- then what in
the heck does it make sense for it to be writing specs & reqs for?
MP: I would assume that logical operators and equality could
be safely included and without too much controversy, ...
JA: I bite my tongue ...
MP: except from the set theory purists, we could probably include
notions of membership and subset on the form side. We might
also include the most general relationship categories, e.g.,
BinaryPredicate, BinaryFunction, and the vocabulary and rules
for articulating constraints on the arguments or domain and
range of a relation, but I think most would contend that
we've already moved into content here.
JA: I am experiencing a serious disconnect here.
Let me see if I can figure it out later on.
MP: Does your position (and/or John Sowa's) on the SUO simply amount to a claim
that the IEEE ontology standardization effort should cover only the logical
operators, equality and basic notions of set theory? If so, I'll go one
further. These notions aren't in need of standardization, so if you're
correct that we should stay away from content I would contend that we
should just pack in the whole thing.
JA: Okay, by "form" I mean things like "architecture of form and function",
that is, the formats that are made available for representing knowledge
and the functions that we can apply to the expressed models or theories.
In the analogy, like "style sheets" and buttons on the various tool bars.
There is a vast array of conceivable themes and variations in these things
that are hardly yet dreamt of in Horatio's contemporary onto/logical schemes.
JA: Let me know if that's making more or less sense.
MP: I feel like my question is a bit naive but I really don't know what
the "concentrate on form" proposal amounts to. Perhaps this has been
addressed in one of John Sowa's emails or papers. If so, please point
me there and I apologize for missing it on the first go round.
MP: Maybe your answer(s) to this will help me to understand what
Jon means by "generic functions of conceptual work" below.
JA: To invoke the analogy between "concept processors" and word processors,
our job is analogous to writing the specifications for a word processor,
our is not the business of supplying ready-made term papers to students.
JA: Most of the domain knowledge that actually exists in the world is not yet
in the above short list of "ontological resources" and much of the content
that does reside in some of these sources would be just plain ridiculous to
any specialists actually working in the supposedly covered domains.
JA: So I think that the list of "other sources" and the overall mix of
ingredients in this mélange would need to be widened considerably
beyond what's currently contained in these putative resources.
JA: To advert a potential misunderstanding that I can already see coming
down the road, I am decidedly not saying that there is nothing left
for us "meta, generic, abstract, philosophical" folks to do once the
lion's share of content and domain cutlets have been carved off the
corpus of the world's knowledge beast. What is left is precisely
the form, and I would add the function, and those are the aspects
of knowledge evolution that we should be working to facilitate.
JA: Again the analogy with word processors;
the real design and spec questions are:
JA: 1. What are the generic forms of conceptual content
that concept users need to be supported in using?
JA: 2. What are the generic functions of conceptual work?
Which functions can be given supporting utilities?
JA: I think that those are the sorts of services that
a standard ontology utility ought to be providing.
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
Item 2. Extensionality: How Words Do Things To Things
MW: I was recently sent a copy of Axiomathes,
and noticed a paper with the above title.
MW: Cocchiarella, Nino B., "Logic and Ontology",
'Axiomathes' 12, 117-150, 2001.
MW: The part of the paper that interested me was the different
interpretations that could be made of predication, depending on
whether your basic ontology is based on nominalism, conceptualism,
or realism (or some graduation between).
MW: One of these, attributed to Quine, seems to coincide with
my own interpretation of predication, and I repeat it here.
NC: | Quine's understanding of his ontology as platonistic and
| of sets as universals is based on a rather involuted argument,
| the essentials of which are as follows: if we were to adopt
| platonism as a theory of universals as represented by higher
| order logic in which predicate as well as individual variables
| can be bound, then
|
| 1. predicate quantifiers can be given a referential
| ontological interpretation only if predicates are
| (mis)construed as singular terms (i.e. terms that
| can occupy the argument or subject positions of
| predicates); and
|
| 2. assuming extensionality, ...
BA: That's a big assumption. I have to think this through better
but if you make this move then you're committed to something
like Lewis' view where a predicate like "Beer" applies to all
the beer there is, anywhere, at any time (thus extensional).
On this view "Beer" can't apply conditionally to individuals
at worlds or at times.
BA: So, accepting the view of predication that you want is asking a lot
from those who don't buy extensionality (this extensionalism carries
several not insignificant ontological burdens of its own in exchange
for a clean theory of predication) or who are actualists but still
want statements like "There could be more beer than what there is"
to come out as true. Given that, there is no basis to call the
basis of predication in KIF into question. After all, it's
just a logic and you're being a little hard on it, don't
you think?
Matthew, Bill, Anybody, ...
Can you tell me in operational, practical, realistic terms:
1. How you would tell what a sign actually signifies?
2. How you would tell the difference between a sign
that signifies a singular individual and a sign
that signifies a plural general or universal?
When I say "actually" I mean what a word really does,
and not just merely what a word is "supposed" to do.
Signs do not do anything at all in and of themselves.
Whether "Beer" denotes X number of bottles on the wall,
decrementally varying through time t, and all depending
on which of all possible parallel omnibusses you happen
to be on, or whether it denotes a historically situated
individual also known as "Stafford", all depends on your
friendly local neighborhood private or public community
of interpretation.
http://www.staffordbeer.com
http://www.dsl.org/faq/beer
MW: In the end I would rather build on rock than on sand.
It all depends on your point of view,
the magnification and scale thereof.
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
Item 3. Systematic Errors In Ontology
Ontology Of Systematic Errors Affecting Ontological Projects
1. Insufficient Reality Testing
1.1. Lack of respect for the complexity
of the phenomenon or the problem
that one is addressing.
1.1.1. Procrustean Monadomania.
Trying to force relational realities
into non-relative monadic categories.
1.1.1.1. Absolutism
1.1.1.2. Essentialism
1.1.1.3. Invariantism
1.1.1.4. Objectivism
1.1.1.5. Universalism
2. Illusions Of Perspective
2.1. Plastic Condensations
2.2. Projective Distortions
2.2.1. Animism
2.2.2. Anthropomorphism
2.2.3. Belief in Spells
2.2.4. Word Magic
As in "predicates do this", and "words do that".
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤