SUO: Re: Re: Monosemy, Semantics, and Natural Language

["asha" <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>]

To Prof. John Sowa:

Your suggestion how to clarify the mysteries of meaning is a very good reading. Following the general tenor of your argumentation, I'd like to elucidate some crucial points. One of them is that the damnation of semantics comes from its intrusion into three fundamental realms of human knowledge: language (signs, symbols, words, and signals), thought (ideas or constructs) and things (universe of discourse).That is, semantics, unlike mathematical logic, inherently committed to ontology exersizing conceptual control over these extensive knowledge areas. As the study of the tripartite relationships where signs signify the realities which they name as well as thoughts whose meaning they express, semantics organically completes ontology, enriching it with its concepts, rules, and methods. Such ontological semantics, depending on the nature of the components of the triangular relations, will comprise:

the onto-semantics of science (the natural sciences, the social sciences, the humanities);

the onto-semantics of mathematics, embracing model theory or model-theoretic semantics;

the onto-semantics of logic, encompassing logical semantics and metalogic;

the onto-semantics of common knowledge, covering all sorts of common sense knowledge models;

the onto-semantics of language, including nonsymbolic (noncognitive) language and symbolic ( conceptual and pictorial) representations.

 As it is known, the convergence of logic with semiotic, the general science of signs and languages, and with the axiomatic method resulted in metalogic dealing with formal systems and languages, and serving as the conceptual basis of current knowledge technologies, like the semantic web. Onto-semantics can be a desirable and long-seeking replacement for metalogic; for the semantic artefacts are crying for the fundamental assumptions and principles from which the meaning processing technologies can be designed and developed. As the matter stands, the combination of (world)ontology and semantics can meet such high expectations.

The bottom line: to safeguard from the imperfections  of natural language and the abuse of words, ambiguity, equivocation, imprecision, obscurity, meaningless, or absurdity, as well as form immature upper ontologies, it is necessary to elaborate a computable theory of meaning (machine-processible semantics) in terms of entity types (objects, states, changes, and relations) as an inherent part of SUO activity.

 

Sincerely,

Azamat Abdoullaev

EIS Encyclopedic Intelligent Systems LTD

Moscow, Russia

Pafos, Cyprus

http://www.eis.com.cy

 

---- Original Message -----

From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net>

To: <cg@cs.uah.edu>; <standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org>

Sent: Saturday, March 13, 2004 7:17 PM

Subject: SUO: Re: Monosemy, Semantics, and Natural Language

> 
> I received an offline note, which stated an extreme
> 
version of a position that some people might actually
> believe.  
Following is my response.
> 
> John Sowa
> 
_____________________________________________________
> 
> Yes, 
there are certainly many legislated concepts, and
> they are valuable for 
many purposes, but there are limits
> to the possibility or desirability 
of legislation.
> 
>  > I cannot imagine that there is 
anyone involved with
>  > ontology efforts, let alone any attempt 
to integrate theory
>  > representation without legislating 
(standardizing) concept
>  > meanings. The only question is what 
discrimination features
>  > will be used initially to bracket 
category granularity.
>  > Thereafter concept definitions will be 
defined much as
>  > Webster defined words, but without allowing 
10-25 different
>  > meanings.  Hereafter we will go to the 
ontology reference
>  > much as we went before to Webster.
> 
> Let us take the prototypical mathematical concept:  
Number.
> Originally, it meant the natural numbers starting with 
1.
> Then the Indian mathematicians invented a brilliant
> 
extension, which the Arabs adopted and popularized:  0.
> Later, 
mathematicians extended the concept to include
> negative numbers, 
imaginary numbers, complex numbers,
> quaternions, etc.
> 
> 
If mathematics isn't sufficient to convince you, just go
> to physics, 
another very precise subject, and look at the
> way the meanings of atom, 
energy, heat, force, mass, etc.,
> have evolved over the years.  An 
atom was originally
> defined as an indivisible (a-tom or not-cuttable) 
piece
> of matter.  But when electrons were discovered, 
people
> realized that atoms were composite.  Then they 
discovered
> the proton and later quarks and gluons.  Look at 
energy
> and matter, which were originally distinct, but which are
> 
now considered to be interchangeable.  And now perhaps
> people have 
discovered the Higgs boson, which is responsbile
> for giving matter its 
mass.
> 
> If you want something more relevant to computers, just 
look
> at the diversity of the meanings of operating systems and
> 
their components, as they vary from IBM mainframes, to Unix,
> to Mac, to 
Windows, and to the diversity of programs that
> run all kinds of embedded 
systems.  The definitions of files,
> records, tasks, processes, 
threads, etc., are different for
> all of these systems -- and they vary 
with every new release
> or patch to every operating system.
> 
> The same is true of programming languages, which vary with
> 
every release -- just ask anybody who has ever tried to write
> a large 
system that would behave the same (or even run) when
> it was compiled 
with multiple releases of the same compiler,
> much less with Microsoft's 
C, IBM's C, Borland's C, Gnu gcc,
> etc.  Or look at the SQL 
standard, which ISO has legislated
> as an International Standard, and 
then talk to anybody
> who has tried to convert a large database running 
Oracle's
> version of SQL to or from IBM's version or Microsoft's
> 
version or many, many others.
> 
> You can also look at the Academie 
Francaise, which tried
> to legislate the meanings of French words (not in 
anything
> nearly as precise as needed for computers, but they 
tried).
> The result was that they stifled the growth of the 
French
> language, which resulted in large amounts of French slang
> 
that never get into French dictionaries and a wholesale
> borrowing of 
English terms to supplement the official
> French.  The Academie is 
busily trying to legislate new
> terms, but they can't stem the 
tide.
> 
> Please note that none of this is the result of 
language
> or notation.  Meanings grow and change with every 
new
> development of any kind.  The only way to prevent 
meanings
> from changing is to stop growth -- i.e., to destroy all 
life.
> 
> Summary:  Your hopes of legislating the meanings of 
a
> significant number of concepts are (1) hopelessly unrealistic,
> 
(2) impossible to enforce, and (3) a disaster waiting in
> the wings for 
anybody foolish enough to attempt it.
> 
> Growth and change are 
inevitable.  I suggest that you learn
> to live with it, accommodate 
it, take advantage of it, and
> rejoice in it.
> 
>