Re: Unified Framework for Ontology
There's an interesting approach to formal ontology (which yields a tree
structure, with a 'top') discussed in Fred Sommers article, "Types and
Ontology". (You've cited this article yourself, John). The article is
reprinted in Strawson's anthology, *Philosophical Logic* (OUP, 1967), which
I imagine a fair number of folks have. I believe Sommers has subsequently
written a book along the same lines, but I've not read it. There are also a
couple of articles of his on the web, to be found from:
http://www.formalontology.it/sommersf.htm
That website itself is quite interesting. -Jay
----- Original Message -----
From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@BESTWEB.NET>
To: "Rob Freeman" <rob@CHAOTICLANGUAGE.COM>
Cc: "'SUO WG'" <standard-upper-ontology@listserv.ieee.org>; <cg@cs.uah.edu>
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 08:22
Subject: Re: Unified Framework for Ontology
> Rob,
>
> We're not too far apart, but I'll add some qualifications
> to your points. And at the end, I include a note that I
> sent to the ONTAC WG on a related topic.
>
> RF> The idea of abandoning a single central standard set
> > of axioms sounds entirely sensible to me. But why stop
> > at axioms?
>
> I don't say we should stop there, but my proposal for UF
> is intended as a useful intermediate step.
>
> RF> Do you need WordNet? Words are perfectly useful categories,
> > why not strike your balance between the general and the
> > specific the same place language does, at words.
>
> There are good reasons for developing formalisms, and even
> though I often criticize them, I also recognize their value
> for many applications. Something like WordNet is a useful
> intermediate step.
>
> RF> That is to say, if you are going to allow your users to
> > make theory specific mappings, why not allow them to make
> > theory specific mappings between words and categories too?
>
> I would certainly want to do that.
>
> RF> Surely if abandoning fixed theories gives you greater
> > universality, abandoning fixed categories will give you
> > more again.
>
> I am not proposing that *any* category be fixed for all time.
> On the contrary, my recommendation is to make the ontology
> modular so that you can replace theories as units -- where
> any theory could be as large or as small as you like.
>
> Following is my previous note.
>
> John
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: The possibility of a universal framework
> Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2005 10:53:51 -0500
> From: John F. Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net>
> To: ONTAC-WG General Discussion <ontac-forum@colab.cim3.net>
>
> I received an offline note related to some of this
> discussion. Following is my response with the
> features that identify the sender deleted.
>
> John Sowa
> ________________________________________________________
>
> I am firmly convinced that it is in principle impossible
> to have a single, ideal, universal framework of any kind
> that is also formal and precise. Such a system would
> be far too rigid and inflexible to serve as a foundation
> for knowledge representation for science, engineering,
> business, and everyday life.
>
> This does not mean that we cannot have formal ontologies,
> but merely that we cannot have a single, monolithic ontology
> that is fixed and precisely formalized from top to bottom.
> We might have multiple ontologies or a framework that allows
> modules to be replaced or modified, but the idea of a single
> monolith is doomed.
>
> On the other hand, I also believe that *every* natural
> language is capable of being extended by means of metaphors
> and related techniques to be a universal *informal* system.
>
> Note the distinction:
>
> 1. No precise formal system can ever be universal.
>
> 2. But every natural language embodies sufficient
> resources to serve as a universal informal system
> that can be extended and modified by metaphorical
> means to cover everything that is humanly conceivable.
>
> I strongly disagree with the following:
>
> > Although her doctoral supervisors ... applaud her
> > exploration of "the nature of human language by using
> > the experimental scientific method," they do not see
> > her research as something useful for exact sciences
> > and technology.
>
> On the contrary, the fundamental methods of doing creative
> research in science and technology *always* involve breaking
> out of any rigid formalized system. Every creative advance
> introduces new meanings that are totally foreign to the
> framework that had been precisely defined beforehand. You
> can have trivial innovations that reshuffle the old ideas,
> but a creative advance must, of necessity, break the mold.
>
> Just look at Einstein's papers of 1905 -- which destroyed
> the foundations of classical physics. If Einstein had limited
> his thinking to just those concepts that had been formalized
> up to 1904, it would have been impossible for him to think
> those new thoughts or to express them in a formal language
> that had previously been defined.
>
> Every creative advance in science *and* engineering destroys
> some previous formalism and introduces a totally new framework.
> That means that if science were restricted to only those
> concepts that had been formalized at some point in time, *all*
> of science and technology would be frozen at that instant,
> and no further advance would be *conceivable*.
>
> Note the word "conceivable". If you freeze the language,
> you freeze thought. George Orwell understood that principle
> very well -- read his book _1984_, especially his discussion
> of Newspeak as the intended replacement for English.
>
> These points don't imply that formalism is bad. It's necessary
> for any kind of computer programming. But as soon as you have
> formalized something for version 1.0 of your program, you can
> be certain that at least part of it will be contradicted by
> something in version 1.1. And by the time you get to v. 2.0,
> you will have to rewrite the whole theory that you formalized
> for v. 1.0.
>
> John Sowa