RE: SUO: RE: Topic Maps
John
Thanks for the clarification. I have some sympathy with your view since I
believe that a problem with many data modelling notations is that they are
not sufficiently definitive or expressive to allow much of use use to be
acurately infered from models declared using the notation.
I would question whether every notation has to be explicitly mapped to FOL,
it might be sufficient to map to one or more other notations whose behaviour
with respect to FOL are well known and understood.
I would also argue that describing a modelling notation in terms of FOL is
only a part of the picture - the weakness of many notations, it seems to me,
is that the mapping between the model and the world is not sufficiently
defined (which I guess is often but not always an ontological problem).
It is certainly true that the XTM (the XML topic map notation) 1.0
specification does not contain a formal mapping to FOL. There are moves
afoot however to improve the rigor of the processing model and to encode it
in a number of representations. That should make the mapping to FOL pretty
explicit. The original topic map bias may well owe much to the world of
publishing but there is now a greater representation from people who would
like to see more rigor introduced - hence a greater interest in the
underlying conceptual model and the role of ontology/ontologies.
That said, my first question, in terms of the use of topic maps, is "would
they bring utility?". If the answer to that question is "no" then their
relationship to FOL is irrelevant. If the answer is "yes" or "maybe" then
the relationship to FOL becomes a substantive issue.
I raised the issue of topic maps because I felt that I could see a useful
role for them and with the thought that other members of SUO might wish to
look at XTM and see if their was any resonance for them. If the answer is
"yes" or "maybe" then it would seem sensible for the homework to be done.
Regards
Chris A
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org]On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: 17 February 2001 00:52
To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Topic Maps
Chris,
>As the person who first suggested that we might consider the use of Topic
>Maps can I point out that I explicitly stated "Note that my proposal does
>not in any way argue against either the use of KIF as the normative
language
>or controlled english (or whatever) as an informative form.". I simply do
>not believe that people involved in the Topic Maps paradigm have any notion
>of it taking over from notations such as KIF or CG (although, having said
>that, CG's might be a very useful presentation form for topic maps) - they
>are targeted at different but complementary purposes. Topic Maps provide a
>map to resources, they do not replace the resources.
Actually, my primary point was that logic is more fundamental
than any particular notation. I regard KIF, CGs, Topic Maps,
etc., as many different notations, all of which have different
strengths and weaknesses for different applications.
My primary argument was for FOL as a minimal criterion, which
the developers of KIF and CGs expressly considered in their
development. And I would really like to see everybody who has
any notation of any kind to be given the homework exercise of
demonstrating exactly which subset or superset of FOL their
notation is capable of expressing.
John Sowa