SUO: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
At 07:24 AM 9/21/2003 -0400, Jon Awbrey wrote:
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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.
Your purported thesis concerning the need to explicitly consider more foundational mathematics and physics in order to create a useful SUO, if that's what you're claiming, is certainly not one that I'd dismiss. However, to be frank, I don't see very many of your contributions as attempts to show the various starter document creators how their contributions might improve by taking such considerations more seriously or how failing to do so undermines the quality of their SUO work which is what I'd expect in "attempts to actually critique and engage the content of the submitted starter documents". (In fairness to you, this conclusion is based on a sampling of your contributions rather than an exhaustive perusal of the vast body of your SUO work, so I may have missed something. I had missed, for example, your allegedly ignored invitation to the SUMO creators to discuss the set theoretic foundations of their work.) In any event, you're quite right to say that I have differ!
ent perceptions about the utility of the discussions on this list as substantive feedback to starter document creators. However, I'd be happy to hear
Given the amount of energy you're devoting to your contributions and *your* perception that it is almost all substantial and useful feedback to the starter document creators, wouldn't it be prudent to do a user satisfaction survey and ask the starter document creators and other potential SUO builders whether they agree with the 98% figure? Of course, if they don't you could always dismiss it as more evidence that "the proponents of these projects do not take the feedback of the SUO WG, as a whole, seriously", but this raises the question of why you'd waste your time continuing to cast your pearls before such ungrateful swine.
>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:
>
<snip>
>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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