Re: SUO: Peer-to-peer interoperability of ontologies
Jean-Luc,
I agree with that point of view:
> I believe the conventional view of ontologies as some kind of
> authoritative dictionary elaborated with much pain by consensual debate
> is obsolete and does not even allow the kind of communication for
> which they are supposedly made for, that is, sharing knowledge between
> remote interacting parties, lest it "freezes" the accepted meanings
> and slows down the evolution of concepts.
That view of ontologies is consistent with the traditional practice
of lexicographers. Even as large a dictionary as the OED is considered
to be *descriptive* rather than *prescriptive*. It records all the
word senses that have been used, and now that it has been computerized,
it continues to add new word senses as they develop.
> The solution I advocate, at a technical level, is to view each
> ontology as an evolving repository continuously incorporating new
> meanings from interaction with other parties just as needed to make
> sense of the ongoing exchanges.
That is consistent with the practice of lexicographers who develop
dictionaries for human use. The ontologies used by computers must
have more precisely stated definitions, but they must be able to grow
and adapt to current usage by both their human and their computer users.
And I would add that a framework such as IFF would provide a means
for recording and maintaining the best current contributions, such as
SUMO and OpenCyc, while allowing for the kind of growth and development
that is necessary to prevent obsolescence.
John Sowa