SUO: Re: General Design
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Richard Cooper wrote:
>
> John F. Sowa wrote:
> >
> > Julian and Jon,
> >
> > I agree with Julian's three levels, but I would use
> > different labels for them:
> >
> > JF> thing
> > > philosophical-stuff
> > > useful-stuff
> >
> > The top node could be called the "empty" node since
> > it has no axioms and is true of everything. The bottom
> > level could be called the "concrete instance" level,
> > since the categories apply to instances of things that
> > people see, hear, feel, smell, and taste. The middle
> > level is the level of generalizations or abstractions
> > from the lower levels.
> >
> > Some labels in the middle may come from philosophical
> > discussions, but many of them come from physics (which
> > used to be called "natural philosophy"). They are
> > extremely useful for stating general principles that
> > apply to more than one application. Without them,
> > there is no hope of sharing modules between different
> > concrete applications.
>
> Consider an algorithm that takes a bottom-up learning approach.
> First, it would have a set of bottom level sensors that would
> assert propositions into a context (called the present situation)
> and use this as a measure of reality at event T[i]. So the
> ith situation S[i] is made up of a bunch of object names and
> propositions about the objects which hold true at event T[i].
Rich,
Starting with propositions in a general sense is way higher than the bottom.
More likely I'm guessing you mean the detected presence of a positive feature,
say a_j out of some predisposed alphabet !A! = {a_1, a_2, ..., a_j, ..., a_n?}?
Jon Awbrey
> Then, at event T[j], it would sample the jth context,
> providing a set of object names and propositions that
> hold true at event T[j]. So far so good.
>
> The next steps are
> 1) to relate S[i] and S[j] so that we can distinguish
> between the two situations based on sampled observations.
>
> 2) to name the action we assign to the thing that causes our
> universe to move from S[i] to S[j].
>
> With the results of these steps, we may have developed a new
> bottom level node at the "useful stuff" level. If so, there
> is a third step:
>
> 3) calculate S[i^j] := S[i] ^ S[j];
> S[i^~j] := S[i] ^ ~S[j];
> S[~i^j] := ~S[i] ^ S[j];
> S[~i^~j] := ~S[i] ^ ~S[j];
>
> Leaving the psychological projection of symbols onto the
> four quadrants of comparison as a human, and possibly
> manual editing step, for the purpose of building a
> communicable ontology.
>
> Of course, we should repeat the process for every new
> situation the system observes. Eventually, the lattice
> fills in and gets pretty complicated.
>
> And the final step in each iteration:
>
> 4) solve the issue of how to name the quadratures
> of experience, the actions that caused transitions from
> one situation to another, and any other human projections
> we wish to use for discussing changes in the system as
> it evolves.
>
> I find this step most mysterious. WordNet or other
> source of symbols might help choose names for the objects,
> propositions and actions, possibly even for the intermediate
> levels between nil and reality, but no approach suggests
> itself to me that could conceivably be automated.
>
> Suggestions, extensions and elaborations appreciated,
>
> Rich
>
> > Jon Awbrey stated it well:
> >
> > JA> Or maybe axioms are the cart and experiences are the cartload.
> > > It can a take a couple hundred or a couple thousand years of
> > > experience with a motley crue of crude examples before some
> > > people will start to notice that the same darn patterns of
> > > thought tend to keep turning up in what appears to be the
> > > darndest places, and the useful sorts of axioms only but
> > > gradually percolate themselves to the top of the heap.
> > > But even this is a retrospective illusion. At the
> > > beginning of the story you don't even know what
> > > the "examples" are supposed to be examples of.
> >
> > My major criticism of Cyc, Sumo, and Dolce is that
> > the developers started from the top down with some
> > preconceived assumptions about what would be
> > necessary for every level beneath the top.
> >
> > I believe that it is important to scour the philosophical
> > and scientific literature in order to take an inventory
> > of all the best distinctions and generalizations that
> > anyone has ever discovered. But rather than organize
> > those distinctions according to somebody's best guess,
> > I would recommend using an algorithm that would generate
> > the organization automatically. And I would iterate and
> > reiterate the application of that algorithm with every
> > new addition at any level of the hierarchy.
> >
> > There is a lot more to be said about the algorithms and
> > how to use them. But for starters, I would suggest that
> > people look at the work on Formal Concept Analysis (FCA)
> > for deriving lattices from low-level distinctions. For
> > a brief discussion of lattices with an example of FCA,
> > see Section 7 of my tutorial on math & logic:
> >
> > http://www.jfsowa.com/logic/math.htm#Lattice
> >
> > Note that when you apply FCA or any other method for
> > deriving lattices, the algorithms often generate new
> > nodes that don't correspond to any names in the original
> > language. When philosophers and scientists find such
> > nodes, they coin new words from Greek roots. Those are
> > the "philosophical terms" that Julian said were not
> > useful. But mathematically, they are important for
> > labeling potential generalizations, which may turn
> > out to be very useful for applications that no one
> > had ever considered before.
> >
> > I won't say that FCA is the answer to all our prayers,
> > but I will say that it is better than drawing trees or
> > lattices by hand.
> >
> > John Sowa
> >
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