RE: SUO: RE: RE: The Story So Far
Dear Doug,
As someone who has also come from a different environment (data modelling
and information management) perhaps I can try to explain what I understand
as the difference.
Classification systems are indeed useful. At a base level they give you some
headings under which you can put and find things of a similar sort. At a
next level they can hold information that is common to members of the class,
and perhaps specify some relationships and properties, the values for which
you should have for each member of the class.
So let us take the case of a waste bin and a desk. I would expect that a
good classification system would enable me to store and retrieve the
information about these two objects so that I could answer questions like:
"Can I put the waste bin on the desk?"
"Can I put the waste bin under the desk?"
(depends a lot on the size and weight of the waste bin)
On the other hand I think the idea here is to try to get to the stage where
you can simply ask the questions directly to the "system". This means that
you need to have captured a lot more in terms of general knowledge about how
the world is and how it behaves - so called "common sense".
So this would mean that whilst classification systems were certainly part of
what is needed, there is some other stuff as well, which is normally just
left in the definitions of the classes, and often not even found there, that
needs to be formalised and made explicit.
This is not a trivial task, though there has been at least one significant
attempt at it in the form of CYC.
Well that at least is what I think the difference is.
Regards
Matthew
============================================================
Matthew West
Operations & Asset Management - Shell Services International
Shell Visiting Professor, The Keyworth Institute
H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
http://www.shellservices.com/
http://www.keyworth.leeds.ac.uk/
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
============================================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Douglas McDavid [mailto:mcdavid@us.ibm.com]
> Sent: 07 March 2001 13:41
> To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: Re: SUO: RE: RE: The Story So Far
>
>
>
>
> Chris --
>
> Ian Niles wrote:
>
> > > A natural language and subject categorization
> > > scheme don't embody a single view about the way the world is; they
> provide a
> > > representational framework for stating and locating views
> about the
> world.
>
> You replied:
>
> > Surely the whole point is that they do NOT provide a sufficiently
> > accurate/formal/etc. representational framework. The problems we are
> talking
> > about arise when we start using a sufficiently accurate/formal/etc.
> > representational framework. To slip into a Hayes rhetorical
> mode for a
> > moment - if you are taking these as your examples, you have
> little or no
> > idea of the kinds of tasks that need to be done to produce something
> useful
> > for commercial/industrial systems.
>
> My thought:
>
> I would truly like to understand what you mean by "useful"?
> I wonder how
> you think commerce has been conducted, and economies of the world have
> proceeded in the centuries before you, and the particular
> cleavings of the
> world that you are so enamored of, appeared on the scene?
>
> The rhetorical mode that you adopted is very unfortunate for the point
> you are trying to make. The kind of rhetoric that states one
> or another
> of the colleagues here have "little or no idea" about
> something or other
> is extreme and polarizing, and from my perspective meant to be
> divisive.
>
> In any event, natural language and various practical
> classification schemes
> have been the way useful commercial and industrial work have
> always been
> conducted. I came to this list as a step in a long career
> of trying to
> refine these
> schemes and usages to make them more practical and useful in a world
> that is increasingly permeated and dependent on
> interoperating software
> mediations of human communication. In recent exchanges I am
> learning that
> this endeavor (IEEE SUO) was conceived by folks who have a different
> concern.
> I am still trying to really understand what that motivating
> concern is, and
> whether
> it has any relevance to the work I am trying to do. The words "useful
> commercial/industrial systems" give me hope for commonality.
> The rejection
> of all of natural language and existing classification schemes pretty
> effectively
> snuffs that glimmer of hope.
>
>
> 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
>
>
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