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Re: [cuo-wg] The next key question

To: common upper ontology working group <cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: richard murphy <rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 07:45:56 -0500
Message-id: <45C72704.3070504@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
count me in, I'll post something tonight ...    (01)

Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6 wrote:
> CDSI WG,
> 
>       Given Pat Hayes' description (below) of what Jim Hendler refers to as 
>"URI-based reference mechanism 
>                 coupled with the standard for KR and other aspects is aimed 
>exactly at scalability.":  
>         
>         The key question now is: Could the above referenced technology (when 
>it matures) be used to achieve semantic interoperability across large numbers 
>of domains (with independently developed ontologies)?  Any takers?
> 
> Jim Schoening
> 
>         
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pat Hayes wrote:
> 
>>OK, here's my take on that.
>>
>>First, "standard for KR". I think all that Jim means is, the SWeb is 
>>intended to use whatever is the best available KR mechanism that can 
>>be adopted as a 'standard', ie which a wide enough spectrum of users 
>>can be persuaded to agree to use. No such choice will be free from 
>>controversy. OWL wasn't and isn't free from controversy, and nobody 
>>even knows if a large enough community can ever be brought to 
>>consensus on an acceptable Rule language. But assuming that some WG 
>>can get its job completed, and produces a useful notation, then that 
>>can be used on the SWeb. There are plenty of potential candidates 
>>which are way more expressive than OWL readily available. So it would 
>>be a mistake to identify the SWeb vision with OWL or DL technology in 
>>particular. OWL-DL is just the first in what one hopes will be an 
>>evolving series of KR standards which will provide the infrastructure 
>>of the SWeb. Perhaps the next one will be more like
>>Python+Prolog on steroids. Or it may be a
>>breakthrough in CL reasoners using the guarded fragment, who knows? 
>>The decision is as much political as technical, or even subject to 
>>whims of intellectual fashion.
>>
>>"URI-based reference mechanism" is more interesting. This is one of 
>>the few things that really is new and different about the SWeb: it is 
>>part of the Web, and subject to Web conventions and protocols. It 
>>isn't *just* applied ontology engineering. So, every SWeb ontology is 
>>required to use names drawn from a (literally) global set of names. 
>>The scope of these names is the entire Web. There are no 'locally 
>>scoped' or 'private'
>>names on the Sweb. So if your ontology uses a name for a concept, my 
>>ontology can use it too.
>>Anyone can 'say' anything about everyone else's concepts, on the Sweb. 
>>This is a whole new game, which nobody has played before. A can 
>>introduce a concept called A:thingie1 and B can introduce B:thingie2, 
>>and C can then, entirely independently and without asking for A or B's 
>>permission, assert that (say) A:thingie1 is the same as B:thingie2. A 
>>and B may disagree: tough tittie, they can't stop C from making the 
>>assertion. C can say things about A's ontology, in fact, such as 
>>assert that it is all BS. The globality of the namespace has a whole 
>>range of consequences which we are only beginning to explore. And 
>>being URIs (actually IRIs these
>>days) , these names can also be used as identifiers which *access* 
>>things on the Web.
>>Whether these accessed things should be the referents of the names is 
>>currently controversial (I think not, in general), but that they 
>>access
>>*something* is not even remotely at issue. So SWeb concept names have 
>>a whole new dimensionality to them, which is (or at any rate can be) 
>>orthogonal to their use as referring names. In particular, it allows 
>>ontologies to "address" other ontologies (a pale version of which is 
>>the OWL:imports primitive, but one can do a lot more than this), which 
>>obviously has many potential applications relevant to scaling.
>>
>>Hope this helps.
>>
>>BTW, I entirely agree with Jim's optimism. I think people are way too 
>>scared of inconsistencies. Lets wait and see what problems actually 
>>crop up before trying to solve or avoid ones that we only worry about 
>>rather than actually find.
>>
>>Pat
>>
> 
>  
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>     (02)

-- 
Best wishes,    (03)

Rick    (04)

email:  rick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web:    http://www.rickmurphy.org
cell:   703-201-9129    (05)


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