Re: The problem with things like these philosophical kind of divergences at the
upper-middle level is that ordinary ideas like 'physical object' or 'human'
turn out to have different properties in the different frameworks. (01)
This seems to confuse divergence of terms with divergence of concepts. We
certainly know the binding of term to concept is context sensitive - but the
concepts enumerated are not the same and do not, in my mind, point to
"philosophical kind of divergences". They are divergences in the binding of
the term to the concept. The simpler ontology does not have the fully
developed set of concepts (human-A-continuant, human-A-occurrent) but maps well
to one of those concepts - so I don't see the incompatibility. (02)
-Cory (03)
-----Original Message-----
From: cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 3:41 PM
To: Obrst, Leo J.
Cc: common upper ontology working group
Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] WC3 Solutions (04)
>Yes, I agree with you here, Pat.
>
>The resulting integration ontology if you will is A + B + their
>respective bridging axioms, or perhaps better (I know this begs the
>question on what '+' means here) (05)
Im taking it to be something very simple, like textual concatenation or
conjoining. So you could just say & rather than + (06)
>:
>C: A + bridging axioms to B, B + bridging axioms to A, ... [where ...
>is anything else you might have, though what that could be at this
>level is unclear]
>
>But those bridging axioms by definition must include stuff from both A
>& B. (07)
Not sure what stuff you are referring to. They must use the conceptual
vocabulary from both A and B (and more), but the actual axioms are unique to
the bridging ontology itself. (08)
>
>There may be ultimate stuff at the top that is irreconciable except by
>using bridging axioms, but to me, those axioms are the integration
>aspect.
>
>Of course my argument is less valid the closer you get to the top,
>i.e., that you end up using a common upper ontology. I hate to use the
>often bandied about "lattice of theories", but I agree with its typical
>notion of modularity, i.e., that there is uber logical structure that
>holds among ontologies qua theories. In your example, it's the space
>that contains A, B, and their bridging axioms. (09)
Right. Though just to be clear, I was referring to A and B and so on, but in
fact these are nothing but sets of axioms, logically: there are no real
'module' boundaries here; and the bridging axioms relate concepts which occur
in the ontologies, not the ontologies themselves.
(In fact, the only place in the logic that the ontologies play any role at all
is in the namespace discipline, which is logically
invisible.) Which is why I began by asking you what you consider to be AN
ontology, exactly.
Same (?) question: what do you consider to be a module? (010)
>
>My guess is that if you have your A & B ontologies (with or without the
>bridging axioms which relate them), they will need to contain much of
>the same other stuff, though items such as 'person' (or 'human', to
>avoid other side issues) down in potential middle ontologies that A & B
>potentially embed or characterize or are linked to, will inherit their
>respective 3D/4D characteristics. (011)
The problem with things like these philosophical kind of divergences at the
upper-middle level is that ordinary ideas like 'physical object' or 'human'
turn out to have different properties in the different frameworks. For example,
a DOLCE-style ontology ( or one based on Barry's snap/span contrast) will
distinguish 'human'
meaning a continuant (I am the same person I was ten years ago) from 'human'
meaning a human lifespan, whereas a differently framed ontology would not make
this distinction. So, is the set {Pat, Pat's life} a singleton or not? I
suggest the right answer to questions like this is, you can have it both ways.
If anyone wants to make a distinction like this, they are free to do so. If
someone else wants to not make the distinction, then evidently what they mean
by 'human' isn't the same as either of these, so now we have a three-way
distinction: human-A-continuant, human-A-occurrent, and human-B which isn't
either an occurrent or a continuant. (Maybe its a kind of blend or sum of these
ideas, but that way of putting it isn't very helpful as A thinks this is
logically incoherent and B doesn't know what 'continuant' means in the first
place. B might be thinking about 4-d worms, or some such idea: the A notion of
continuant doesn't make sense in that way of thinking.) (012)
Each of these inherits using the higher axioms from its own ontology, but you
had better not let them cross-inherit, or everything goes pear-shaped very
quickly. So then we need the bridging axioms to connect these together
appropriately: but until you agree to accept the distinctions, you can't even
get the axioms
written: if you try to get rid of the
distinctions by generalizing upwards , or by asking everyone to please stop
arguing and agree, you will never get the problem solved. Its important to let
10|3 flowers bloom, then find ways to cross-breed them. (013)
But note, its not that these A and B folk differ about anything that a
philosophical layman would consider to be a question of fact about what 'human'
really, in some sense, means. They all would say, when faced with an actual
human, that this is what they are talking about. They all would say that they
are just writing down ordinary everyday common sense knowledge, and they would
all be right. Its just that they would encode this same ordinary knowledge into
different logical/philosophical/ontological styles when they go to the
formalism. (014)
>I am not worried about global consistency (015)
:-) I am. I have no idea how to rationally handle global inconsistency, and I
:havnt heard a sensible proposal for how to do it. And its very easy to arrange
:global consistency (assuming local consistency) so why not just assume it and
:move on? (016)
>and in fact can tolerate two
>domain ontologies that use the same middle/upper to be mutually
>inconsistent. (017)
Its easy to make them consistent by using disjoint vocabularies. If there are
three (or
seventeen) notions of 'human', use three (or
seventeen) different logical names to denote them. Or use a more systematic way
of assigning meanings to names, e.g. by using contexts or contextualized names. (018)
>But they will only be able to share the consistent information (or the
>one's inconsistent info will have to be treated somehow special when
>brought into the other). (019)
Well, that 'treating special' is what Im suggesting to do as a general policy,
from the get-go. Rather than think of merging ontologies as a kind of addition,
and an inconsistency as something that requires triage or repair, think
instead that one would not expect that ANY concepts from one coherent ontology
will be exactly identifiable with ANY concept in another.
Treat them as strangers, then introduce them carefully. If they do turn out to
be the same, its very easy to write the bringing axiom: (020)
(= TomatoInA TomatoInB) (021)
Pat (022)
>
>Thanks,
>Leo
>
>_____________________________________________
>Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
>lobrst@xxxxxxxxx Center for Innovative Computing & Informatics
>Voice: 703-983-6770 7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
>Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@xxxxxxx]
>Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 1:17 PM
>To: Obrst, Leo J.
>Cc: common upper ontology working group
>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] WC3 Solutions
>
>>Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
>>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>> boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C70CEC.EDC7481A"
>>
>>Yes, we are addressing a content standard here, not a useful knowledge
>>representation language for expressing that content. Content is
>>expressed in the KR language, and the language is largely independent
>>(not completely, depending on the expressivity desired in the content;
>>you can't easily shoehorn content that requires e.g. higher order
>>quantification into a description logic).
>>
>>Semantic interoperability requires:
>>1) representation in a KR language that you can map or translate
>>to/from or a common KR language,
>>2) but primarily commonality of content, i.e., a common (or set of
>>common) middle/upper ontologies or common reference domain ontology.
>>You can try to create an integration ontology (a generalization of the
>>set of mappings between
>>them) that spans two ontologies and get farther.
>>But you'll find that you are largely creating a common domain
>>ontology, and eventually a common middle, upper ontology. How else can
>>you have commensurability, i.e., comparable or comparative semantics?
>
>Well, this really does depend on what you count as AN ontology, in the
>singular. So take an example, which has been giving rise to
>ontology-standardization debates for as long as there have been
>ontologies to debate. Many frameworks require a sharp distinction to be
>made between continuants and occurrents. Other frameworks, in contrast,
>either do not recognize the distinction at all, or treat it merely as a
>convenient classification of physical entities, perhaps even allowing
>the categories to overlap in some cases (eg an eternal flame could be
>viewed in either way). These two attitudes to ontological design are
>certainly incompatible, and the formal ontologies that their respective
>proponents might design (DOLCE would be an example of the first) would
>likely differ in important ways. Nevertheless, it is possible to make a
>single formal ontological framework which would allow each of these
>designers to write ontological content in their own preferred way, and
>still be mutually consistent and even able to 'converse', in the sense
>that content written in one style can be translated into the other
>style, both ways round, and this translation can be done by performing
>inferences using bridging axioms.
>So, we can have two (sub?)ontologies, written differently, some
>bridging axioms which use and relate both vocabularies, and the result
>of putting all this together is a single ontology which encompasses
>both of the previous ones. This larger, unified, ontology is not one
>that would meet with the philosophical approval of either of the
>writers of the original ontologies, but it is internally consistent.
>This is an integration ontology, if you like, but its not obtained by
>generalizing upwards - for disagreements like these, there isn't much
>further up to retreat to
>- but instead by providing cross-links between different conceptual
>frameworks. It does not require commonality of content, only
>appropriate negotiations between contents.
>
>It works like this. Ontology A makes the distinction very sharply,
>treating it almost as a well-formedness constraint on the vocabulary.
>It is obliged to often distinguish between a continuant (eg a person)
>and the occurrent which represents the temporal progression of changes
>to that continuant (the person's lifetime or lifespan). Ontology B does
>not distinguish between these; it talks simply about temporal entities.
>The bridging axioms use functions A2B and B2A to map between the
>vocabularies. Axioms include
>
>(forall ((x Acontinuant))(= (A2B x)(A2B (lifespan x))))
>
>and in the reverse direction
>
>(forall ((x BtemporalThing)(r
>AoccurrentProperty)) (if (Acontinuant (B2A x))(iff (r x)((B2A
>r)(lifespan (B2A x)) )))
>
>and so on.
>
>
>>The alternative is that you pass the mappings all the way across and
>>up to humans every time, i.e., require humans to continually make
>>semantic decisions. Possible but unrealistic.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Leo
>>
>>_____________________________________________
>>Dr. Leo Obrst The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics
>>lobrst@xxxxxxxxx Center for Innovative Computing & Informatics
>>Voice: 703-983-6770 7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305
>>Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>From: cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>[mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Schoening, James R
>>C-E LCMC CIO/G6
>>Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 12:53 PM
>>To: 'common upper ontology working group'
>>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] WC3 Solutions
>>
>>Adrean,
>>
>> No languages or standard for respresenting knowledge solve the
>>problem of CDSI. They all enable groups to define data models or
>>ontologies, but these models will not be semantically interoperable.
>>
>>Jim Schoening
>>
>>
>>From: cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>[mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Adrian Walker
>>Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 12:45 PM
>>To: common upper ontology working group
>>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] WC3 Solutions
>>
>>Hi All --
>>
>>A quick scan of
>><http://www.mip-site.org>www.mip-site.org seems to indicate that MIP
>>leans towards XML.
>>
>>So, perhaps RDF would be one of several technologies beyond XML (but
>>related to it) for CDSI to explore?
>>
>> Cheers, -- Adrian
>>
>>Adrian Walker
>>Reengineering
>>Phone: USA 860 830 2085
>>
>>On 11/20/06, Measure, Ed (Civ, ARL/CISD)
>><<mailto:emeasure@xxxxxxxxxxxx>emeasure@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>wrote:
>>
>>Jim et. al.,
>>
>>How does CDSI relate to C2IEDM and the MIP? Is it intended to
>>incorporated or supercede it?
> >
>>Ed
>>
>>
>>From:
>><mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>[mailto:<mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxx
>3.net]
>>On Behalf Of Adrian Walker
>>Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 9:42 AM
>>To: common upper ontology working group
>>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] WC3 Solutions
>>
>>Hi Jim --
>>
>>Agreed, W3C RDF-OWL are unlikely to solve CDSI without additional
>help [1,2].
>>
>>However, RDF is a pivot data representation, and as such is 2N.
>>
>>It has other drawbacks, but not the N**2 one.
>>
>>Cheers, -- Adrian
>>
>>[1]
>><http://www.semantic-conference.com/program/sessions/S2.html>www.seman
>tic-conference.com/program/sessions/S2.html
>>
>>[2]
>><http://www.w3.org/2004/12/rules-ws/paper/19>www.w3.org/2004/12/rules-
>ws/paper/19
>>
>>Adrian Walker
>>Reengineering
>>Phone: USA 860 830 2085
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On 11/19/06, Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6
>><<mailto:James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx>James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>wrote:
>>
>>John,
>>
>> You say: " So, it may be useful to focus on ways to extend
>>the proven WWW model, via W3C processes, to accommodate the CDSI
>>requirements before branching out to seriously consider other less
>>tried and proven approaches."
>>
>> I don't see that the W3C or Semantic Web community has a
>>candidate solution for CDSI. Tim Berners-Lee talks about "let a
>>thousand flowers bloom," but that's the old N**2
>>problem. If they have a candidate solution,
>>could someone please explain it to us.
>>
>> (I agree all the candidate technical solution are unclear
>>paths, and none may work, but I believe large enterprises should try
>>pursuing all viable candidates.)
>>
>>Jim Schoening
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:
>><mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>[mailto:<mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxx
>3.net
>>] On Behalf Of John Flynn
>>Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 9:46 AM
>>To: 'common upper ontology working group';
>><mailto:bcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>bcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>Cc: 'Flynn, John P.'
>>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] White Paper
>>
>>
>>Cory,
>>
>>
>>A typical problem with government designed and managed architectures
>>is that they have the potential to represent a lowest common
>>denominator (LCD) approach in order to accommodate the interest of all
>>the candidate participants. The resultant LCD architectures are so
>>vague that they still allow many non-interoperable applications to be
>>developed and almost always contain relatively easy to obtain
>>provisions for exceptions. It seems that the one architectural
>>standard that has best held up over a number of years, gracefully
>>evolved and truly supported broad interoperability is the World Wide
>>Web architecture. It was not designed or managed by the government.
>>Also, it is not proprietary. So, it may be useful to focus on ways to
>>extend the proven WWW model, via W3C processes, to accommodate the
>>CDSI requirements before branching out to seriously consider other
>>less tried and proven approaches.
>>
>>John
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From:
>><mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>[mailto:<mailto:cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>cuo-wg-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>>On Behalf Of Cory Casanave
>>Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 11:21 AM
>>To:
>><mailto:bcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>bcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
>>'common upper ontology working group'
>>Subject: Re: [cuo-wg] White Paper
>>
>>Brad,
>>We have been thinking along similar lines but I submit the government
>>has to own their architectures, only they have the cross-cutting view
>>(or should have). Contractors can help build these, but the
>>architecture asset (as the expression of the enterprise, enterprise
>>needs and solutions - business or
>>technical) has to be put into the acquisition cycle. Systems then
>need to
>>be built to that architecture is an executable, testable way. Those
>>architectures have to STOP being "for a system" and be "for the
>>enterprise". SOA makes a great model for these architectures -
>>separating concerns and providing the boundaries to build to. The
> >semantic technologies can help here to join and
>>bridge architectures, but you are absolutely correct that the core
>>problem is not technical.
>>-Cory
>>
>>
>>
>>
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