Re: [cuo-wg] The next key question

["Adrian Walker" <adriandwalker@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jim, All --

It's good to see Pat Hayes contributing to this discussion.  He has made many key contributions to logic, knowledge representation and reasoning, and so is in a good position to clarify the sometimes rather obscure aspects of current "semantic web"  work.

However, one could argue that what Pat says about URI naming is correct as far as it goes, but that it's only a first step towards putting "semantics" to work in the kind of military planning use case that Jim has in mind.  (I'm guessing that Pat would agree.)

If we take URI+RDF+OWL+ontologies as the current state of the "semantics" art, it's something like saying that we have four wheels, and some tires, and we know how to put the tires on the wheels, so this looks very promising for constructing a car.  It's a necessary step, but far  from sufficient.

In real world software, URI+RDF+OWL+ontologies can be part of a system, but other parts of the system will add interpretation of meaning.  Applications will compute over URI+RDF+OWL+ontologies and come up with things like a military plan of action.  In doing so, applications will 'understand'  the content in their own way, and they will present the results to a human in a way that the human will also 'understand'.  

So, there are two further kinds of semantics that are needed in a system that will be reliably useful.  If URI+RDF+OWL+ontologies is Semantics1, then we also need

     * Semantics2   how applications should understand, interpret and compute with Semantics1 and other data

     * Semantics3   the English meaning of logical concepts at the author and user interface

With a combined approach to Semantics1, 2, and 3, we  can get close to the sufficient conditions for building our semantic 'car'. 

It seems to be generally agreed that Semantics2 is being addressed by choosing a logical model theory for rules systems that will reason on the web -- this is work in progress in the rules interchange working group at W3C.  I'd favor the Semantics2 in [1], but the important thing is to at least converge on an agreement about what consequences it should in principle be possible draw from any collection of rules and facts.

I know of only two places where Semantics3 is being seriously addressed for practical use outside the research lab.  One is in 'controlled English' work [2], and the other is in the open vocabulary executable English system [3] that my company has placed online.  

The only place I know that Semantics1, 2, and 3 are being made to work together is in [3].  Without an overall design, we are just in the situation of separately designing wheels, engines, and brakes, with a vague hope that they will one day fit together to make a useful semantic car.

                                                            Cheers,  -- Adrian

Adrian Walker
Reengineering
Phone: 860 830 2085


[1]  Backchain Iteration: Towards a Practical Inference Method that is Simple Enough to be Proved Terminating, Sound and Complete.  Journal of Automated Reasoning, 11:1-22

[2]  
www.ifi.unizh.ch/attempto/publications/papers/FLAIRS0601FuchsN.pdf

[3]  Internet Business Logic. A Wiki for Executable Open Vocabulary English .
Online at www.reengineeringllc.com
  .   Shared use is free



On 2/5/07, Schoening, James R C-E LCMC CIO/G6 <James.Schoening@xxxxxxxxxxx> 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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