RE: SUO: Re: Focus and Volume
Pat,
> The other end of this opinion spectrum holds that getting the upper
> levels 'right' in some sense (there may be several senses involved,
> by the way) is a prerequisite, or at any rate a desideratum, for
> creating an ontology with well-structured lower levels. This is the
> more popular opinion - some seem to take it as almost axiomatic - but
> it seems to me that this case is the harder one to make, if a case
> needs to be made. I would suggest that a more useful and productive
> debating topic than the ones that have been cluttering this list so
> far might arise if those who feel that an upper ontology is obviously
> useful, could provide arguments for this position. At the very least,
> this would be a start at exposing the various assumptions and goals
> that drive the SUO effort, and might help to clarify how these
> various opinions relate to each other. Since we often seem to be
> trying to pull the effort in different directions, this might be
> worth taking a little time over.
Another point of view, for people's consideration, could be the following:
- Our ultimate goal is to have a "standard ontology", for supporting the
applications that originally motivated the formation of SUO as a working
group.
- Toward that end, our goal should be to develop a "standard kernel
ontology", and we shouldn't worry about whether it is upper, middle, lower,
etc. One might call it a "foundation ontology", or "core ontology".
- Our method in developing this standard kernel ontology should be to seek a
standard set of "ontological/conceptual primitives", using which all other
concepts in an ontology can be defined via some standard "concept
specification language" -- this language might be KIF or we might decide it
should be something else, perhaps to be developed.
Examples of concepts we might want to use and axiomatize as conceptual /
semantic primitives might include:
Entity
Relation
Agent
Context
Situation
State
Space
Time
Matter
Structure
Event
Action
Process
Method
Tool
Theory
Sign
Referent
Language
Taking this approach shifts our focus from thinking in terms of a top-down
ontological hierachy, in which relations between concepts may be limited,
toward thinking in terms of how concepts can be defined in terms of other
concepts, and finding a kernel of primitive concepts and definitional
mechanisms that appear to be sufficient for defining all concepts one might
need in a complete ontology.
Phil Jackson
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"Metaphysics may be divided into, i, General Metaphysics, or Ontology; ii,
Psychical, or Religious, Metaphysics, concerned chiefly with the questions
of 1, God, 2, Freedom, 3, Immortality; and iii, Physical Metaphysics, which
discusses the real nature of time, space, laws of nature, matter, etc. The
second and third branches appear at present to look upon one another with
supreme contempt." - CSP, CP1:192
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