|
Matther & All: Despite John's unique position on neutrality, I still support the neutrality principle for the UF ! yuk, yuk, yuk ... Seriously, we're all committed, passionate individuals whose work together will move this field forward despite an occasional faux pas. Wait 'til you see me and Cory go at it! The principles of modularization, parameterization, negotiation, alignment, and unification add the broad perspective that prevents the UF from degenerating to the trivial case Matthew describes below. There's a common language we all share: logic, theory, model, morphism, interpretation, type, token, classification, relation ... How we understand each other and formalize this common language is our challenge. Best wishes,
Rick
office: 202-501-9199
cell: 202-557-1604
"West, Matthew R SIPC-DFD/321" <matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
11/27/2005 05:27 PM GMTPlease respond to"ONTAC-WG General Discussion"
To "ONTAC-WG General Discussion" <ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
cc
bcc Richard C. Murphy/IAA/CO/GSA/GOV
Subject RE: [ontac-forum] Neutrality Principle
Dear John,
Are you aware just how small the UF really is?
I have:
Thing
Individual
A thing that exists in space-time (or space and time).
Note: This needs to be broad enough to encompass 4D
possible individuals in possible universes, and 3D
occurants.
Class
A thing that has members.
Note: This needs to be weak enough to allow 3D classes
to change their membership over time and 4D classes that
are defined by their extent.
Tuple
I don't think there is much more that is really common.
Take something like pump. In a 4D ontology this would be
represented by a set (unchanging membership) of spatio-
temporal extents. In a 3D ontology the members are
occurants. Now you could of course have a class that was
the superclass of these two, but you wouldn't get a sensible
answer from it for how many pumps there are. (Actually it
would probably make more sense to have a class of pump classes).
I did think there might be some common ground around activity,
but it seems not. A 4D activity has as parts temporal parts of
its participants. A 3D activity, although spatio-temporal, has
occurants as participants that do not have temporal parts.
Do you see a way out of this?
Regards
Matthew West
Reference Data Architecture and Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: 27 November 2005 15:01
> To: ONTAC-WG General Discussion
> Subject: [ontac-forum] Neutrality Principle
>
>
> In developing a unified framework, we need to get all
> the major players in the ontology field to work together
> right from the beginning.
>
> Since all the major systems are currently incompatible
> with one another, that requirement imposes constraints
> on what is possible. Therefore, I propose the following
> *neutrality principle*:
>
> The unified framework UF should be neutral with respect
> to all the major ontology projects that are currently
> under development. That implies:
>
> 1. Every system X that participates in the effort
> should support import and export operators for
> importing all of UF or any subset of UF to and
> from X.
>
> 2. UF should not contain any categories or relations
> that would create an inconsistency with any major
> system X; i.e., it should be possible to import
> *all* of UF into X without causing an inconsistency.
>
> 3. Importing UF into any system X and then exporting
> it from X should result in a version UF' that is
> logically equivalent to the original UF except for
> possible cosmetic changes in the formatting. Those
> changes should not cause any other system Y that
> imported UF' to generate inferences that differed
> from the inferences generated directly from UF.
>
> 4. Points #2 and #3 imply that the initial version of UF
> should avoid having a complex or detailed upper level,
> since most of the inconsistencies between any two
> ontologies result from problems at the top. It also
> implies that the system should contain a minimal
> number of relations whose definitions are not overly
> restrictive; i.e., it is better to have *too few*
> axioms than too many, since the more axioms there
> are, the more conflicts arise.
>
> 5. Point #3 implies that the emphasis of the UF should
> not be on rich inference capabilities, since those are
> usually highly context dependent and very likely to
> lead to inconsistencies. Therefore UF would be better
> suited to interchange and communication than to extended
> inference or problem solving. The extended inferences
> would be done by more specialized systems, which could
> add additional axioms of their own and use either
> logic-based methods or computational techniques.
>
> 6. UF should avoid features that limit its use to any
> particular notation or system of inference. OWL,
> for example, could be used to represent all of UF,
> but UF should not have any dependencies on any features
> of OWL -- either in logic or in formatting -- that are
> not available in all major systems of ontology.
>
> The details of these points are negotiable, but the fundamental
> principle of neutrality should be that UF shall be based on the
> minimal subset of features that do not create inconsistencies
> with any major ontology.
>
> To avoid slighting anybody, I'll avoid listing what ontologies
> should be considered "major".
>
> John Sowa
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Message Archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/ontac-forum/
> To Post: mailto:ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Config:
http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontac-forum/
Shared Files: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/
Community Wiki: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/OntologyTaxonomyCoordinatingWG
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/ontac-forum/
To Post: mailto:ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Config: http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontac-forum/
Shared Files: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/
Community Wiki: http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/OntologyTaxonomyCoordinatingWG
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/ontac-forum/
To Post: mailto:ontac-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Config:
http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontac-forum/
Shared Files: http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/ontac/
Community Wiki:
http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/OntologyTaxonomyCoordinatingWG (01)
|