Re: CG: Re: SUO: OpenCyc Released
Comment below.
Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>
To: <cg@cs.uah.edu>
Cc: "Standard-Upper-Ontology (E-mail)" <standard-upper-ontology@IEEE.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 18:19
Subject: Re: CG: Re: SUO: OpenCyc Released
>
> Bob,
>
> I agree.
>
> > Perhaps the first task is an evaluation of OpenCyc. 6,000 concepts
> > with 60,000 assertions about them is a large bite - it may take a
> > while to digest. They also seem to have a large array of tools - a
> > browser, inference engine, RKF tools, documentation and self paced
> > learning tools, specification of CycL and translators to other
> > languages, import/export facilities, an API and sample programs.
> > It appears to be a very comprehensive package.
>
> Anything that has taken 18 years of elapsed time and 500 person years
> of total effort must take a great deal of time to digest. My major
> concern is that I don't believe that there is anyone in the world who
> really understands everything that is in Cyc and whether it is really
> consistent with itself or with anything else.
What do you mean by 'consistent', John? Formally or informally consistent,
and with what further specification? How should it be determined if OpenCyc
is consistent, either self-consistent or with anything else? What is
OpenCyc's proof theory, e.g.? Until that is known, the question of
self-consistency in that formal proof-theoretic sense can't be answered.
>
> > It would be nice to get user feedback on this package before trying
> > to smash it together with something else - particularly if the
> > something else isn't widely admired.
>
> A lot of feedback is certainly needed. But as I have said in many
> previous postings, I don't believe that smashing together is the
> appropriate thing to do, either with Cyc or with the modules that
> were "smashed together" to build SUMO.
>
> What I would like to see is the opposite: a piecemeal breakdown and
> analysis of exactly what is in OpenCyc and in any or all other
> ontological resources and how they relate to one another.
>
> John Sowa
>
>