James,
My understanding of the lattice of theories is that it is a modular approach
to upper and reference ontologies, much like the cyc micro-theories. Some
kind of contextual modularity in/of the theories like this will, IMHO, be
required to support DCSI. The set of theories in the "reference" lattice
for our purposes would, I think, be a managed set and thus not grow out of
bounds or have any more N**2 problems than any other large ontology - not
all the theories need be connected. What is the alternative - one
monolithic theory? (01)
In fact, we may want to divide the candidate space into; (1) The logic, (2)
The concept set (E.G. upper ontology), (3) the modularity/context mechanism.
Some of the candidates would cover all 3 (like cyc). We may end up with
more than one in each slot. (02)
My bias here (discussed on this list a few months ago) is that context is
the key missing ingredient to DCSI and perhaps to successfully integrating
upper & reference ontologies. I don't know for sure that the John Sowa
lattice approach is exactly the right one, but it certainly seems to be on
the right track and John has done a lot of thinking about the problem. So
yes, it should probably be considered as a candidate. (03)
I know there is also the topic map camp that claims to address context &
modularity - an area I have intended to look into more. So many theories,
so little time. (04)
In fairness I should also add that I am not an expert in formal systems, I
am looking for a solution to integration of architectures (my special way
of saying DCSI) - I have come to this group to learn about what may be
available from the semantic technologies to help and add what I can. (05)
Regards,
Cory Casanave (06)
-----Original Message-----
From: cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:42 PM
To: 'common upper ontology working group'
Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] Additional "upper ontology" to consider (07)
Gary,
Per your suggestion, I added BFO to the list of examples of upper
ontologies, at http://www.visualknowledge.com/wiki/CDSI (08)
Regarding listing John Sowa's proposed Latice of Theories, does
anyone else have an opinion as to whether this approach could potentially
enable CDSI. (09)
My question #1: Does the lattice truly connect all the theories,
such that independently developed models have some level of
interoperability? If so, isn't this an N-squared problem, if the number of
theories grows too large? (010)
Jim Schoening (011)
-----Original Message-----
From: cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Gary Berg-cross
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 5:09 PM
To: cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cuo-wg] Additional "upper ontology" to consider (012)
To the DOLCE, SUMO, Upper CYC and BFO upper ontology candidates; I would
suggest that we consider John Sowa's approach to using a Lattice of concepts
as an upper level that can be specialized for focused needs. (013)
He recently summarized his approach in a presentation called "A Dynamic
Theory of Ontology" at the November 9-11 International Conference on Formal
Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2006) held in Baltimore. (014)
A key claim from the paper was : (015)
"this paper proposes an organization with a dynamically evolving collection
of formal theories, systematic mappings to both formal lattices of concept
types and informal lexicons of natural language terms, and a methodology
that allows independent distributed development and extension of all the
resources, formal and informal." (016)
I don't yet have a copy of the PPT, but the abstract is below. (017)
Gary Berg-Cross, Ph.D.
Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Architecture & Semantic Technology
EM&I Suite 350 455 Spring park Place Herndon VA 20170 703-742-0585 (018)
________________________________________
Abstract
Natural languages are easy to learn by infants, they can express any thought
that any adult might ever conceive, and they accommodate the limitations of
human breathing rates and short-term memory. The first property implies a
finite vocabulary, the second implies infinite extensibility, and the third
implies a small upper bound on the length of phrases. Altogether, they imply
that most words in a natural language will have an open-ended number of
senses - ambiguity is inevitable. Peirce and Wittgenstein are two
philosophers who understood that vagueness and ambiguity are not defects in
language, but essential properties that enable it to accommodate anything
and everything that people need to say. In analyzing the ambiguities,
Wittgenstein developed his theory of language games, which allow words to
have different senses in different contexts, applications, or modes of use.
Recent developments in lexical semantics, which are remarkably compatible
with the views of Peirce an!
d Wittgenstein, are based on the recognition that words have an open-ended
number of dynamically changing and context-dependent microsenses. The
resulting flexibility enables natural languages to adapt to any possible
subject from any perspective for any humanly conceivable purpose. To achieve
a comparable level of flexibility with formal ontologies, this paper
proposes an organization with a dynamically evolving collection of formal
theories, systematic mappings to both formal lattices of concept types and
informal lexicons of natural language terms, and a methodology that allows
independent distributed development and extension of all the resources,
formal and informal.
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