Re: SUO: Re: Do we need an upper ontology?
Pat,
That is an important point.
Patrick Cassidy wrote:
> Unfortunately, Doug Lenat is also of the opinion that there should
> be only **one** middle ontology, namely CYC.
That is perhaps the most dangerous possible situation that the SUO
could get into. I believe that we should concentrate more on a
methodology for creating arbitrarily many middle levels (and even
top levels) that are tailored for different purposes.
That is possible if we consider the distinctions to be more fundamental
than the categories. Following is the general outline:
1. For each distinction (which may be binary, ternary, or a spectrum
such as colors), there are axioms that characterize each of the
possible options. (A spectrum would be characterized by axioms
that contain a continuous parameter, such as wave length.)
2. The categories of the ontology are defined by conjunctions of
distinctions, and their corresponding axioms are the conjunctions
of the axioms associated with each of their distinctions.
3. A Leibniz-style lattice, which permits arbitrary conjunctions of
distinctions, generates extremely bushy lattices with many nodes
that are never populated with instances of possible existents.
But other lattice-generating techniques, such as FCA, accommodate
constraints among the distinctions that prune the unpopulated
nodes.
4. At any time, new distinctions may be added or deleted, and a new
lattice can be generated by pushing a button.
For a brief summary of lattices with a discussion of the Leibniz-style
and FCA-style, see Section 7 of my tutorial on math & logic:
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/misc/mathw.htm#Lattice
John Sowa