Re: SUO: ELP's summary of MRW's standards experience

["John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>]

Pierre,

To repeat:  I believe that Cyc is a very important experiment
from which I and many other people have learned a great deal.
Furthermore, there is still a lot more that we can learn from
studying Cyc and comparing it to other approaches, including
SUMO, DOLCE, etc.  But the following statement (or something
like it) is one that I have made many times to, among other
people, Lenat and some of his colleagues:

JS>(1) "Cyc upper level is a disaster zone"

PG>Can you give the particulars motivating your opinion?

Yes, I have in many different forums over the years, including
discussions with Lenat and some of his colleagues.  I'll do so
again in much more detail as part of the SUO project, but it
is not something that can be answered briefly.

PG> It would be quicker to start from positive claims and
> consistent theories which are not gratuituosly poopooed.

Not necessarily.  There is a great deal of positive value
in Cyc, and even the top level, which I believe requires
serious revision, tells us a lot about the kinds of choices
that must be made and their possible consequences.

>Assuming these are so bad. Do you really think we can profit more from bad

>sources than from good ones? .....

We can often learn more from other peoples mistakes than
from their successes.  And I believe that there is more good 
than bad in Cyc -- that is one reason why it is important to
focus on correcting the bad points.

John