RE: SUO: RE: RE: Re: Missing Ingredients
Murray
I have to say that I would find it very difficult to argue against the
points you make. I do not believe that an axiomatic approach to
constructing an ontology automatically removes all definitions about which
there might be misunderstanding. I feel, but cannot at this stage
adequately formulate in any provable form, that the hope is that we can
minimise the extent to which the interpretation of such definitions affects
the process of inferencing across ontologies that are mapped to the upper
ontology.
Regards
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of
Murray Altheim
Sent: 23 October 2003 01:37
To: Joshua Allen
Cc: Richard Cooper; Tom Johnston; Jon Awbrey; SUO
Subject: Re: SUO: RE: RE: Re: Missing Ingredients
Joshua Allen wrote:
> Hmm, you seem to be arguing that natural language processing is
> difficult. Obviously NL processing is heavily dependent on all sorts of
> context, but I guess I missed the point where the topic became NL
> processing.
I was responding to the idea of a bottom-up approach based on WordNet.
> As far as I'm concerned, the entire reason that activities such as KIF
> and SUO exist is because smart people realize that NL processing is too
> difficult for prime-time and that there are considerable benefits to be
> reaped from taking a more low-tech approach. We simplify the task of KR
> interop by designing systems that depend on shared terms and
> vocabularies, and shared mappings between vocabularies. In these
> systems, it is VERY important to respect the shared meanings.
Not to head back into the semiotic mire, but it's also been shown that
it's very difficult to have shared meanings, even when there are
"formal" vocabularies available, as people will interpret definitions
differently based on their education, culture, etc. But I wasn't going
there. It is an issue. KIF and SUO don't avoid nominalistic patterns
of thought, they tend to reinforce them.
> It is completely possible to build knowledge-based systems which interop
> based on shared sets of predefined terms, and which do so without
> getting mired in semiotics debates. This is low-tech and has high admin
> overhead, but is working in thousands of systems today. And this is
> exactly the philosophy from which existing KR interop efforts are
> building.
I believe with the SUO we are discussing going beyond such systems,
into an area where inferencing amongst concepts and relations based
on shared ontologies is one of the primary goals. I would posit,
perhaps under a different thread and a different time, that those
"universal" (even within a domain) ontologies are going to run up
against some of the muckier issues I was mentioning in my longwinded
previous message, since all forms of organization are based upon
language. And microtheories will only go so far in bridging the gap
between mind and machine. But that's for another day...
> But I guess I am still missing your point. Are you arguing:
> A) "it is impossible to build a KR interop system without paying
> attention to all of these semiotics issues"
> -or-
> B) Using WordNet terms in a system is bound to fail because the very act
> of using English words as terms somehow forces you into an NL-processing
> rathole
The rathole, choice B.
Murray
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
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