SUO: Re: Proposed SUO Content Outline
Doug McDavid wrote:
>
> John --
>
> It seems to me that an upper-level ontology
> should strive to avoid most of the problems
> that you outline below. The kinds of things that
> an uppermost ontology could say, that would actually
> be useful to organize subtending ontologies would be
> things along the lines of:
>
> There are spacial coordinate systems.
> There can be any number of such coordinate systems.
> Each coordinate system exists in relationship
> to some specified reference point.
> Coordinates from one system can be mapped
> onto coordinates of another system.
> Some coordinate systems are based on fixed units of length.
> Some coordinate systems are based on dividing
> a geometrical figure into a fixed number of units.
> Etc.
>
> I wonder why anything in an upper ontology would ever be so particular as
> to require reference to any specific spacial coordinate system whatsoever?
>
> Doug McDavid
>
> Certified Executive Consultant
> Voice of the Practitioner Initiatives
> Professional Development - BIS, Americas
> Member of IBM Academy of Technology
> mcdavid@us.ibm.com -- 916-549-4600
>
> [John Sowa wrote:]
> >
> > I agree with Jon's point:
> >
> > > The problem is not writing the axioms --
> > > the problem is drawing the consequences.
> >
> > But I would add the more difficult problem of trying to decide
> > which axioms have consequences that can peacefully coexist with
> > the consequences of all the other axioms in the very big SUO pot.
> > By the phrase "peacefully coexist", I would include an enormous
> > number of related problems:
> >
> > 1. Do they make the same or somehow reconcilable assumptions?
> >
> > 2. Among those assumptions are the basic coordinate systems,
> > such as spherical for the earth as a whole, but rectangular
> > for any reasonably small piece of the earth. (And who decides
> > what is reasonable?)
> >
> > 3. And while we are talking about coordinate systems,
> > should we choose the center of the earth as the origin?
> > Or should we use the average sea level as the zero point?
> >
> > 4. But anything relative to the earth is definitely not
> > an "inertial coordinate system" in Einstein's terms.
> > Why not do everything relative to the sun? Or to the
> > center of the Milky Way galaxy? Or to the center of
> > gravity of the universe as a whole (as Ernst Mach suggested)?
> >
> > 5. Or should we state our axioms in a way that is
> > independent of any coordinate system whatever?
> >
> > 6. Or perhaps we should make them easily tailorable
> > to any particular coordinate system that is relative
> > to the object of interest?
> >
> > 7. Or maybe all of the above?
> >
> > John Sowa
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Doug,
I am not sure, so I will have to let John Sowa correct
me if I have guessed wrong, but I took him to speaking
at least partly metaphorically -- you know how he is! --
that is to say, making use of a certain analogy between
"ontological frameworks" (OF's) and "coordinate systems".
Myself, I often use the phrase "frame of reference" (FOR)
in a broadly punning sense, as a bridge concept to cover
what both varieties of conceptual systems have in common.
Thus, if we follow this tentative analogy a little further,
the next question that we ask is: How do we conceptualize
and represent a "trans-FOR-mation" between two FOR's? And
what we might have in mind, if we try to push the analogy
to its ultimate breaking point, is this general question:
How do we recognize the things, represented as functions
of each interpreter's or observer's conceptual coordinates,
that do happen in fact to remain invariant over very wide
varieties of transformations among these particualr FOR's?
All of this compasses a very wide topic area that I have had on my mind
for a quite a while now, and so I will lean to say some things about it
on a thread that I can stretch out in the general direction of that aim.
I plan to entitle it, as I have before: "Transformations of Discourse".
Until Then,
Jon Awbrey
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