SUO: Re: Standard Upper Ontology Procedures
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SUOP. Note 20
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In: Standard Upper Ontology Procedures.
http://suo.ieee.org/email/thrd5.html#11584
Re: Standard Upper Ontology Procedures. Note 19.
http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg11628.html
JA = Jon Awbrey
MW = Matthew West
Matthew,
We had a pleasant and contemplative Thanksgiving Holiday
here at Imladris -- which is what Sue and I, in all due
sentimentallity, redubbed our home after we painted the
house an "ocean view blue" color this summer -- and all
the usual fixings, of course. I do not know if you are
fully back in the saddle from your conference yet, but
I feel rested enough to continue with the work on the
Procedure Document, which I think is the SUO Group's
best hope for progress in the longer run. It seems
that we, the SUO Group, will have a couple of days
of calm, at least, before the next recursed fuss
interrupts, and I think that you will agree with
me that the intervening time would be best spent
in carrying out more productive forms of work.
Here is where we left off last time
on this particular branch of work:
JA: Issue. Ontology Of Procedure
Yes, I really meant that. Indeed, I have only recently seen the light
that a "Generic Ontology" (GO), such as we are trying to realize and/or
specify in the SUO Work, and such as we find ourselves almost forced to
hammer out, albeit in a vastly reduced model, in a "road test prototype",
or a rougher, ruder, more rudimentary version of the full scale model,
all in order just to bring a few bits of clarity and comprehension to
the development of our Procedure Guidelines. Isn't that a curious
development? Not to force the auto-simile too far down the road,
to the point of some fractal recursion, say, it does raise the
question: If the SUO Group does not find a Generic Ontology,
say, in respect of the Ontology Of Procedure, useful for the
guidance of its activities in the real world, Then Who Will?
That is the question.
I will need to break here, and get back to the rest after coffee.
Jon Awbrey
MW: I realise that many here have suspicions of process and its abuse.
Many people seem to think they need to cheat the process to make
expedient progress. My own experience is that if you use and
trust the process honestly that you get better results than
by trying to cheat the process. So I am trying to do this
by example to hopefully build confidence in doing things
properly. I accept that any use of the process requires
trust and that this hard to develop and easily destroyed.
However, I see no realistic alternative but to try.
JA: Trust is an earned commodity. The management of a co-operative effort
may solicit an initial investment and will no doubt recieve a modicum
of trust on account, but the management of this enterprise has been
profligate beyond its means with the good will that was lent them,
to the point where its ability to return dividends to the holding
company is now all but bankrupt. It will take some time before
it can accumulate any reserves of interest on the basis of its
recurrently draining principles.
JA: Prescinding away from the issues of particular personalities, our trust in one
of those concretely embodied abstractions of principal that we call a Process
will naturally develop when and if we have actual and consistent experiences
of the Process in question performing in a way that is trustworthy, and the
"conditions affecting the effective realization" (CATER) of that trust is
one of those things that we need to discuss under the heading of Process,
not take it for granted that there is some default theory of Due Process
that is given in a fully explicit fashion by common sense or understood
tacitly and perfectly by all concerned on the grounds of some natural
light of reason.
JA: What this means is that a rational account of competent effective Procedure
cannot be accomplished without a considerable amount of conceptual, logical,
and practical analysis. To express it in the manner that many people favor,
it will depend on due inquiry into the ontology of procedures and processes.
JA: So when I take the time to read some document that you have
referred us to, throw away or not, please take the remarks
that arise from that reading seriously the first time that
I take the time to make them. Okay? And then maybe I won't
worry so much, and maybe even be happy.
MW: I rather thought I had responded to the issues you were
raising, despite them being perhaps a little ahead of time.
I certainly think that they are all reasonable points to make.
JA: "Responding" by way of pronouncing a few cliches,
or trying to "define away" the issues by verbal
sleights is not what I consider a due response.
But I begin to see that from your perspective
you can hardly see that significant issues
continue to go unaddressed and unmet, and
so I will take up the responsibility of
recording these unanswered questions
in a more conspicuous manner.
MW: There is no real restriction on becoming a voting member,
only time and patience. Also a non-voting member can
always suggest an issue to a sympathetic voting member.
JA, as amended:
This is Pollyanna talk. The SUO WG is not a Country Club.
People of Quality are not paying Big Bucks to become members.
We have a desperate, I say "desperate" need to attract genuine
expertise in many different areas to the fray. Being treated
like a Plebe or a Pledge for six months, or having to rely on
the kindness of stranglers to have one's input treated with due
respect, is hardly the kind of disincentive that we can afford,
or that we can ask the expert community at large to put up with.
MW: That seems to be to be as much an issue against the time
restriction on being a voting member as anything else.
I personally think it is excessive at 6 months.
JA: This is a Real Issue. Consider it Formalized.
MW: So noted. I am (necessarily) quite happy
to accept the group consensus on this.
JA: So am I. But not by the "silence assents" kind of pseudo-consensus.
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