RE: SUO: 21 May 2002 -- Unanswered Questions About SUMO Set Theory
Dear Bill,
Excuse my ignorance but what is "the finite model property"?
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Andersen [mailto:andersen@ontologyworks.com]
> Sent: 22 May 2002 19:46
> To: SUO
> Subject: Re: SUO: 21 May 2002 -- Unanswered Questions About SUMO Set
> Theory
>
>
>
> On 5/22/02 13:06, "Pierluigi Miraglia" <miraglia@cyc.com> wrote:
>
> > The interesting question can then be raised about whether
> similar efforts
> > could be retooled and exploited to address such needs.
> Well, can they? I
> > for one would be most interested in hearing while either
> Cyc or SUMO or
> > IFF or... _cannot_ in your view be so retooled. This seems
> like a clear
> > question, both theoretical and practical, which many
> (though not I, sorry
> > to report) here seem well equipped to address, although not one that
> > benefits greatly from polling imaginary customers, or so I feel.
> >
> > So let me try to reframe the issue: what is it about an
> ontology that
> > _would_ make it suitable to address these needs? And what is it with
> > existing ontologies that makes them unsuitable? I look
> forward to reading
> > your opinions.
>
> Hi, Pierluigi...
>
> An excellent question indeed. And it's hard to argue with
> your logic wrt
> the point I raised. Who let philosophers on this list anyway? :-D
>
> First, let me offer a few initial points to address the
> "unsuitability"
> issue, then I will try to offer some constructive opinions as
> to what might
> serve to make ontologies "suitable"
>
> * It is unclear to "real people" (by this I mean software
> developers,
> DBAs, data modelers and the companies who build tools to
> support them)
> just how to go about using this ontology stuff. This has
> been a failure
> of the ontology community on the whole, most of whose
> members come from
> an AI tradition, where such concerns have never been very
> important.
>
> * Systems based in first-order logic suffer an "impedance
> mismatch" with
> database and other systems (e.g. The semantic web) that
> will ultimately
> be based in some kind of database or logic programming
> technology that
> has the finite model property. It is a difficult problem to cast
> first-order theories into a form that can be readily used in these
> systems. Thus some fundamental work is required in this area.
>
> * As you mention, such systems were not built with these
> sorts of mundane
> applications in mind. This is one area where the focus of the W3C
> "ontology" community gives them an advantage. One
> example of this would
> be an axiom in a SUMO or Cyc such as the following:
>
> (=> (and (parentOf ?x ?y)
> (age ?x ?x-age)
> (age ?y ?y-age))
> (> ?y-age ?x-age))
>
> Few would disagree that this axiom makes perfect sense, but from a
> pure FOL standpoint it can be used (only) in the following ways:
>
> 1. To prove that ?y-age is greater than ?x-age
> 2. To prove that the age of ?x is not ?x-age
> 3. To prove that the age of ?y is not ?y-age
> 4. To prove that ?y is not the parentOf ?x
>
> A database user, for example, is interested in NONE of
> these uses. For
> them, this is an integrity constraint.
>
> I promised to mention some things to help with the
> "suitability" issue.
> First, it should be clear that the points above give some
> clues as to some
> positive steps that can be taken. More concretely, my first
> step would be
> to find some industrial partners who would be willing to act
> as "guinea
> pigs" for some concrete applications of SUO, and to listen
> closely to what
> they say. Beyond that I can't say much more - my company has
> invested a lot
> of our time and energy addressing the points raised above and
> (I believe) we
> have some good answers.
>
> Hope that is of some help...
>
> .bill
>