SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
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LIS. Discussion Note 33
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JA = Jon Awbrey
MP = Mike Pool
MW = Matthew West
Mike,
I wanted to spend a day or two thinking it over and then address your concerns
in a more direct way. You obviously have very different perceptions than I do.
That is part of what this very real problem of intercommunicability is all about.
From my point of view, 98% of my postings to this list are "attempts to actually
critique and engage the content of the submitted starter documents". Within a few
months of my entering this list, in July of 2000, it became clear to me that all of
my attempts to engage the exponents of a certain perspective about the contents of
their explicit ontologies, their implicit ontologies, along with the methods and the
tacit procedures that go into producing them, at least, to do this in a direct fashion,
would be futile. That came as a shock at first. I have tried numerous different ways
to approach the task of true communication since that time, but it continues be futile.
So the only alternative I see is to make my contributions
to the work of this group, and to make my critique of the
various proposals that are put before it, on a somewhat
broader front.
I have on numerous occasions urged the representatives of
various projects in ontological knowledge representation to
reflect on their underlying aims and aspirations and to make
them more explicit. It seems very likely that some ends may be
incompatible, at least in the short term. I have introduced the
following "primer lattice" of ontological methods, points or view,
or standpoints, that I personally find very helpful in organizing
my own reflections on these questions:
ROSO = Research Oriented Scientific Ontology
ULTO = Upper Level Technical Ontology
SILO = Special Interest Local Ontology
o ROSO
|.
| .
| o SILO
| .
|.
o ULTO
It has been a continuing problem to come up with an accurate name
for a common kind of ontological knowledge representation project.
If the exponents of these projects begin to present research that
would justify the adjective "common", as it would be understood
in anthropological, psychological, or sociological terms, then
they might begin to earn the name of "common sense ontologies".
Until then, it appears to be a popular misnomer, and I will
have to keep looking for a technically more accurate nomen.
It is clear that a ROSO would rely very heavily
on one or more ULTO's for its practical support,
but the dotted lines indicate that the relation
of a SILO to either of these other standpoints
is still a bit hazy, and would depend on much
more analysis on the part of its exponents
in order to firm up its relationships to
the generic line of the other projects.
Unveiling the architecture of any ROSO that deserves the name will require
far more "critical and reflective examination" (CARE) into all that goes
into producing scientific knowledge than any of has yet seen, except,
of course, for readers of Peirce. But building any ULTO, or even
the ultimate ULTO, is a thing that ought to be fairly routine.
At least, it ought to be possible to make quick work of it
if the claims for FOL as a universally adequate formalism
for knowledge representation have any hint of validity.
One merely goes to the library, hauls down a shelf of
standard textbooks in one's favorite subject matter,
many of which exhibit hundreds or even thousands of
years of man and woman hours of prior formalization
work just waiting to be mined and refined into FOL.
A large portion of my contributions to the main SUO archives
and its ancillary ontology archives have been carried out in
precisely this hopeful spirit of inching toward this or that
specialized ULTO. Here you find the links to a mere sampler:
MAT. Mathematical Notes -- Meta Links
MAT. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04731.html -- Math Meta Links
CAT. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04732.html -- Category Theory
DIF. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04733.html -- Differential Geometry
HOC. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04734.html -- Higher Order Cat Logic
MOD. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04736.html -- Model Theory
SEM. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04737.html -- Program Semantics
SET. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04738.html -- Set Theory
TOP. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04739.html -- Topology
Lately added:
DARM. Differential And Riemannian Manifolds
01. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04770.html
02. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04771.html
03. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04772.html
04. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04773.html
05. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04774.html
06. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04775.html
07. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04776.html
08. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04777.html
09. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04778.html
10. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04779.html
11. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04780.html
12. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04781.html
13. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04783.html
14. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04784.html
15. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04785.html
16. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04786.html
17. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04787.html
18. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04788.html
The above-linked material is excerpted from:
| Serge Lang,
|'Differential & Riemannian Manifolds',
| Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 1995.
PAS. Probability And Statistics
01. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04885.html
02. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04886.html
03. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04887.html
04. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04888.html
The above-linked material is excerpted from:
| Hoel, P.G., Port, S.C., & Stone, C.J.,
|'Introduction to Probability Theory',
| Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, 1971.
If FOL really is a universally adequate formalism for
knowledge representation, then it would be a fairly
routine matter to transcribe all of this already
pre-processed, pre-defined, and pre-axiomatized
knowledge into anybody's favorite FOL variant.
I have already done the havesting of this --
let others begin the threshing.
If difficulties arise -- when difficulties arise --
there will of course be a natural human tendency
to say, "Well, those grapes were probably sour,
anyway", or otherwise to diminish the import
of this vintage. A very transparent excuse.
And it exhibits a certain weakness in logic
not to see the contrapositive implication
weighing against the assumption that FOL
is a universally adequate formalism for
knowledge representation.
Just by way of making the application explicit,
this is a critique that applies to many of our
starter documents, present and anticipatable.
Jon Awbrey
MW: I think the vote is mostly about engagement.
Announcing something is (hopefully) going to
happen, and soliciting participation and support.
The result, and in particular indications of being
prepared to contribute, will give an indication of
whether enough energy exists to make things happen.
JA: Only if the energy isn't constantly being used up in procedural entropy.
Engagement is where you find it, and the record of experience in this
body has been that genuine engagement is nearly orthogonal to which
way any vote goes: yes, no, or abstemious. The SUO working group,
as a whole, is not currently "engaged" with Cyc, Dolce, IFF, S/CL,
SUMO, TLC, and so on, not because the SUO WG does not take these
projects seriously, but because the proponents of these projects
do not take the feedback of the SUO WG, as a whole, seriously.
In some cases there is a shortage of the resources that would
be needed to respond to "open world" criticisms;
MP: This is an utterly astounding claim! Would that a mere 2% of the
postings to this list were attempts to actually critique and engage
the content of the submitted starter documents.
MP: Are you able to give me some examples of *substantive* feedback that
has been directed at the starter documents to which the contributors
have been unresponsive?
JA: In other cases the projects are set on fixed courses in particular directions
and have no aim of responding to environmental analysis, critique, feedback,
guidance, impact, review, whatever else you want to call it.
MP: Yet another astounding and, to my mind, totally unfair and unverifiable claim
because there has been so little "analysis, critique, feedback, impact, review"
offered, at least not by this list.
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