>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? (01)
Sure. The direct answer to your question is, no.
BUt that is because your question as posed misses
the point: the open publication paradigm allows
ontologies to NOT be developed independently of
one another. They will cross-refer, use parts of
other ontologies, and include references -
eventually, one hopes, 'nuanced' references - to
one another in a global network of semantic
hyperlinks. And they will do this because to
create a useful ontology by re-using and linking
in this way will be vastly easier than building
entire ontologies from scratch, in isolation from
other ontology building. Think of the SWeb as a
growing ontology 'library', freelyopen to all for
modification and re-use. As pieces of this are
written and found widely useful, the number of
links to them (and the economic pressure on the
community to find ways to preserve them) will
grow, ensuring their even wider re-use. This
effect snowballs on the Web, as we all know. As
far as I can see, the pressures which make such
phenomena as YouTube go from nothing to billions
of users in less than a year will still operate,
albeit perhaps at a different timescale, for the
semantic web also. The semantic web is not just
traditional ontology engineering with XML added
as a kind of afterthought. It is part of the Web,
and will be governed by Webbish laws of growth
and distribution. (02)
Pat (03)
>
>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
>>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Message Archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/cuo-wg/
>Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Config: http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/cuo-wg/
>To Post: mailto:cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Community Portal: http://colab.cim3.net/
>Shared Files: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/cuo-wg/
>Community Wiki:
>http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/CommonUpperOntologyWG (04)
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home
40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax
FL 32502 (850)291 0667 cell
phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes (05)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/cuo-wg/
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Config: http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/cuo-wg/
To Post: mailto:cuo-wg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Community Portal: http://colab.cim3.net/
Shared Files: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/cuo-wg/
Community Wiki:
http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/CommonUpperOntologyWG (06)
|