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Re: SUO: RE: Re: Missing Ingredients




On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 02:22:00PM -0700, Richard Cooper wrote:
> 
> Jon Awbrey wrote:
> <snip\>
> > TJ: 1.1.  Our goal, I take it, is to increase the semantic 
> > interoperability
> >           of databases.  This means, I take it, (although I 
> > have found no
> >           description of any such thing on the SUO website) 
> > is to create
> >           a registration framework for real world databases.
> > 
> > Tom,
> > 
> > There's about 20 years worth of research on "deductive databases"
> > that I can remember just since the first standard textbooks began
> > to appear.  But you said bottoms-up, and I'm all for that, well,
> > let me check -- yes, it's an odd-numbered day where I am, so OK.
> > 
> > Let us try to approach the question
> > of "semantic inter-operability" (SIO)
> > by way of the following sub-questions:
> > 
> > 1.  What is the "meaning" of a "set of sentences" (SOS)?
> > 
> > 2.  What is the "meaning" of a "table of tuples" (TOT)?
> > 
> > 3.  How shall we compare the "meanings" of these two?
> > 
> > I will give you and me both time to think and then get back to you.
> > 
> > Jon Awbrey
> 
> This set of three questions is the most important triple we're
> dealing with in all SUO work.  Getting clear answers to how
> meaning is represented, communicated, stored, compared and
> organized would be a successful result.  

could you try to expand a bit on this? For instance, how does a table
of tuples compare to a set of sentences? 

> 
> We have predefined the answer to be an ontology.  Then we refined 
> that concept to include the lattice of ontologies, plus the IFF
> framework, but I still get the feeling there's a lot of stuff left
> out.

(No here I disagree: once you have answered every question about
meaning the work would be done.)

> 
> So I agree with Tom that the focus should be refined further
> to incorporate real world database concepts, and I add one more
> suggestion; that we should be working with natural language 
> words and sentences to impose the type structure, or class
> structure, and property lists, of common everyday concepts like
> address, customer, person, ..., fill in your favorite concepts.  
 
what is the alternative to "real world database concepts"? What
sort of choice are we presented with? 

> Finally, since we haven't been able to agree on more enhanced
> ontologies than WordNet, perhaps we should start the bottom-up
> process by extracting exactly the ontology that WordNet provides.
> This could be one of the bottom-level concept sets, along with
> others that may appear in the lattice as we continue.  
> 
> Rich
> 

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