Somebody responded to Cory's question "do ontologies change over time",
with the answer "no". I believe that this is incorrect. As an example
consider:
(01)
An ontology (describing the entities and relations) defining the laws of
physical science in 1800
An ontology (describing the entities and relations) defining the laws of
physical science in 2000
(02)
The ontology is concerned with the same domain (laws of physical science),
yet the general understanding of that domain by those working within it has
changed dramatically. And this is over only 200 years.
(03)
Chuck
(04)
ontac-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 01/18/2006 05:40:56 PM:
(05)
> A theoretical set of questions getting down to some practical realities…
>
> We have used the phrase “an ontology” and “a theory” quite a bit –
> do we really know what these are? Particularly when we are talking
> about modular lattices of ontologies/theories we need to understand
> the structure and how we manage and use the lattice.
>
> Is “an ontology” and “a theory” the same?
> What does it mean for statements to be in one ontology Vs. Another?
> What is the scope of an ontology?
> Do ontologies have identity? Do they change over time? Do
> statements have idenetity?
> Is “an ontology” equivalent to “a file” of statements?
> How big is an ontology? How small can it be?
> If it is a lattice, what are the relations between the nodes? What
> are the nodes?
>
> From what I can tell, the concept of “an ontology” has grown out of
> the practice of representing bits of knowledge in files. The
> ontology is a thing you can put in a “file” (Physical or logical).
> Perhaps the “semantics” of “an ontology” is that it is the speech
> act of a particular person at a particular time asserting an
> arbitrary collection of statements. In other words, there is an act
> of publishing an ontology or theory. But, there is no inherent
> semantics in the bounds or context of that speech act. Any boundary
> or “subject” is only in the mind of the publisher.
> “A theory” seems a bit stronger in that an instance can be tested
> for compliance with that theory. However, the scope of that theory
> is still arbitrary and probably corresponds with a speech act, such as
above.
> As with any intellectual asset, these things change over time.
> There are versions, each with identity and some assumed identity for
> a sequence of ontologies. The scope of the ontology will also
> change over time – it will usually get larger as the connection
> points of the concepts are better understood. Is this one ontology
> or many? What is there relationship? How is this managed?
>
> We will need an approach to managing the lattice. We are concerned
> that arbitrary chunks of statements in files will not scale.
>
> An approach to this is that statements depend on and are assertions
> in a defined set of context. Once such context is publication (the
> replacement for the file). There is no such thing as “an ontology”,
> there is a way to reason within a given set of context. Based on
> the discussions in this group, such reasoning is practical. Can
> this lattice “a thing” or can it exist across the semantic web?
>
>
> So is an ontology anything more than an arbitrary set of statements?
> Is it more or less than a file? Does it exist and have meaning? Is
> it the semantic web?
> Thoughts?
> -Cory
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