Smith, Barry wrote: (01)
> From Gary Berg-Cross
>
>> Sorry to be at the Ontology 101 level, but a long time ago (1998)\
>> Gruber, arguing that we need objective criteria founded on the
>> purpose of ontological model, drafted some guidelines to evaluate
>> ontological designs (other than “ a priori” notions of naturalness or
>> Truth). Below are 4 from what I believe were his preliminary set of
>> design criteria for ontologies for knowledge sharing and
>> interoperation. I’m not sure that I agree with the 4th but it might
>> be interesting to see what the group thinks about these…
>>
>> 1. Clarity. An ontology should effectively communicate the intended
>> meaning of defined terms. Definitions should be objective....
>> Wherever possible, a complete definition (a predicate defined by
>> necessary and sufficient conditions) is preferred over a partial
>> definition (defined by only necessary or sufficient conditions). I
>> take some of Barry’s comments to show that Roy’s categories are not
>> complete or at least subject to alternative interpretations.
>>
>> 2. Coherence. An ontology should be coherent: that is, it should
>> sanction inferences that are consistent with the definitions.... If a
>> sentence that can be inferred from the axioms contradicts a
>> definition or example given informally, then the ontology is incoherent.
>>
>> 3. Extendibility An ontologiest should be able to define new terms
>> for special uses based on the existing vocabulary, in a way that does
>> not require the revision of the existing definitions. (we need to
>> look ahead to integrations that will be needed, a particular problem
>> for a general ontology)
>>
>> 4. Minimal ontological commitment....(Perhaps part of what the
>> lattice discussion has been about…I’m not sure that Barry would agree
>> with this and it might be interesting to here sides of the argument).
>> An ontology should make as few claims as possible about the world
>> being modeled, allowing the parties committed to the ontology freedom
>> to specialize and instantiate the ontology as needed."
>
>
> I accept all of the above, and Gary is right that many of my remarks
> thus far in this forum have been in their spirit. I think I would
> understand 4 in terms different from Gruber himself, however. The job
> of ontology is to unify communities with heterogeneous data and
> information. (02)
I am puzzled by the next statement that is somewhat counter-intuitive to me. (03)
> If we enforce minimum ontological coherence on what they do, then this
> would mean enforcing no constraints at all, and then we end up with
> heterogeneous data and information in separate bags (namespaces, I
> think W3C calls them; it seems to think that they are good things for
> ontological purposes; I think they still leave us in a bad position
> regarding the problem of unification). (04)
What would be an example of "minimum ontological coherence" to you that
would result in "no enforceable constraints at all" ? (05)
> If we enforce too much ontological coherence then we will find too few
> groups who are willing to use the ontology. (06)
Despite the counter-intuitiveness of your statement, I can see
nonetheless that heterogeneous integration requires enough semantic
"looseness"
to find room for alignment; e.g., a notion of "thing" that can be
formalized as either 3D vs. 4D. (07)
In a sense, if the minimal ontological commitment produces very tight
semantics; e.g., a notion of "thing" that is already a special kind of
4D concept,
then the semantics are too "tight" to find room for alignment w/ other
ontologies. (08)
Is this paraphrasing a "loose" enough approximation of what you describe
to be consistent with your intended meaning? (09)
-- Nicolas. (010)
> BS
>
>
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> (011)
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