Arun Majumdar wrote: (01)
> Dear Leo and to ONTAC,
>
>> ONTAC/COSMO needs dedicated and informed members to accomplish real
>> goals set out in a reasonable fashion, with deliverables. And use
>> cases/requirements to drive those. And structure that channels the
>> energy toward accomplishment.
>
>
> I strongly agree with all points and especially the last point: While
> I have learned from the comments and notes, I hope that we can pool
> together to bring the level of discussion to feasable, direct and
> productive results: for example, while I have benefitted from the
> responses concerning references to other ontologies, pros and cons,
> there seems no effort to adopt a representation (my suggestion is
> Common Logic) to provide some tools (my highly personal and biased
> suggestion is PROLOG) to deliver some mechanism to enable transforms
> to/from CL/DAML-S/KIF/OWL/etc.. etc... while continuing the effort
> forward in the spirit and intent of ONTAC. Of course, these are just
> quick suggestions for illustrative purposes. (02)
Michael Grunninger said that the FLOWS process ontology in SWSO is or
will be formalized in CL.
FLOWS is part of SWSO, a W3C submission for semantic web services --
http://www.w3.org/Submission/2005/07/ (03)
FLOWS has a strong heritage in PSL which is a work-in-progress ISO
standard --
http://www.nist.gov/cgi-bin/exit_nist.cgi?url=http://www.tc184-sc4.org (04)
Besides PSL and FLOWS having a solid formalization in CL or a dialect of
CL (e.g., a KIF-like dialect for PSL)
both PSL and FLOWS are ontologies focused on the notion of "process" and
associated concepts, e.g., object, activity, activity occurence, etc...
These concepts would be helpful to properly characterize what it means
to share an upper ontology w.r.t. some domain-specific problem solving
activity. (05)
> I hope ONTAC may also *investigate* the possibilities of a closer
> balance with vendor alignments without detracting from its
> "raison-d'etre".
> In terms of the published goals (
> http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP/OntologyTaxonomyCoordinatingWG
> )
> I hope that we can collaborate on approaches that take advantage of
> modern methods like Category Theory (CT) and I ask if this type of
> suggestion is approapriate to this forum. If it is appropriate,then
> perhaps we can consider how we might develop meta-meta and meta-
> models to facilitate the goals of interoperability that are founded in
> CT but realized pragmatically (perhaps using CL as the language). (06)
I would be thrilled to see CT methods applied here. There are glimpses
of evidence that applying CT is substantially more involved than,
e.g., choosing a logic such as CL vs. FOL vs. DL as a language for
representing an upper ontology. The CT notion of "institution"
is a mechanism that allows mathematicians to talk about classes of
problems independently of the choice of a particular logic.
But then, we're back to square one: what problem are we solving? sharing
upper ontologies is, by itself, an incomplete specification of a problem. (07)
In this context, it might help to review one of Barry's suggestions made
recently in response to John (Dec. 2): (08)
--------------------
> 2. Is a one-size-fits-all upper ontology essential
> or even desirable to support interoperability?
> (09)
A small one is desirable (and I think unavoidable), capturing for
instance the distinction between monadic types and relations.
------------------- (010)
From what I understand of CT, that distinction (monadic type vs.
relation) is a matter that transcends the choice of logic used to
formalize the upper ontology
as long as we have a meta language that allows us to say that there are
things that are "types", and "relations" and that "types" have a
"social" life with other
"types" and "relations". The social life of a type determines its
monadic character. I believe that CT would allow us to precisely state
this distinction in a way
that we could use as an analytical tool for arbtrary upper ontologies
specified in some arbitrary logic. (011)
I've deliberately borrowed some phrases from Jose Fiadeiro's book on
category theory for software engineering
in hope to make sense to people on this forum -- see:
http://www.fiadeiro.org/jose/research.html (012)
What is even more encouraging I think is that some mathematicians have
even tried to look at formal ontologies (e.g., DOLCE and OntoClean)
w.r.t. purposes of ontological refinment that are, in my opinion, very
similar to the goals of ONTAC. See the tech. reports by Bob Colomb here: (013)
http://www.loa-cnr.it/Publications.html#PubTR (014)
So, in my view, there is no shortage of data with which we could
elaborate use case scenarios w.r.t.
1) formalisms (e.g., which logic)
2) upper ontologies (e.g., DOLCE, SUMO, SNAP/SPAN, ....)
3) "lower-level problem domains" (e.g., B2B as in the case of Bob
Colomb's examples)
... (015)
On a practical level, we would need to make adequate tools available to
ONTAC in order for genuine collaborations to emerge.
For (2), Pat started to create a Common Semantic Model --
http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?CosmoWG/TopLevel
To effectively collaborate on that model, we need to have some consensus
about (1) for two reasons: (016)
a) to evaluate how good the model is by "testing" it against unit-like
test cases -- can we express the notion of "....", if so, can we
discriminate between variation (1) .... and (2). ....
b) to find adequate tool support for managing the model and analyzing
its semantic properties. (017)
The early OntoClean paper mentioned one that has since then been ported
to Protege 3.x w/ the OWL plugin and the Algernon plugin I think.
This is an example of a combination of (1), i.e., OWL + OntoClean
annotations with which we can work on (2). (018)
However, OWL is sometimes frustrating to use because of the limitations
of OWL-DL and of the lack of tool support for OWL-Full ontologies w.r..t
reasoning.
For example, Alloy -- http://alloy.mit.edu -- is a good, lightweight
practical alternative that makes different tradeoffs of expressiveness
vs. analyzability.
I'm sure we could find other alternatives. In practice, it would be
tempting to use one of these and move on but we would very soon hit a
wall w.r.t. some tool/expressiveness limitation. (019)
So, I believe that the most productive course then is to make practical
progress w.r.t. the declarative aspects of (1), (2), and (3)
and, if necessary, postpone the computational aspects about reasoning,
inference, analysis, etc... Stating the problem concisely and
precisely would be a huge progress in itself and might incite some
vendors to propose solutions to parts of it. (020)
-- Nicolas. (021)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arun
>
>
> Obrst, Leo J. wrote:
>
>> John,
>>
>> I draw different conclusions from the experience of SUO, and largely
>> programmatic rather than substantive in nature.
>>
>> 1) For any standards activity (which the SUO purports to be), there
>> must be general agreement for the need for the standard. By "general",
>> I mean general agreement among those who have some competency and
>> interest to address the standard. Has this ever been true for SUO? I
>> don't think so. Instead it's been a forum for discussion about upper
>> ontologies and related and often unrelated issues. Not that there's
>> anything wrong with that per se, but it's not a standards activity.
>> There has never been a common purpose, as far as I can tell. There were
>> attempts to make it so, but these largely devolved into legalistic
>> disputations on protocols. There has never been one agenda.
>> 2) There was never a strict standards-based regimen for SUO. For a
>> standard to emerge (let alone succeed) a lot of work must be done by at
>> least a small group of people. Although I have some issues with the W3C
>> methodology, it is strong, pragmatic, and gets things done. There is
>> structure, time-dependent goals, and mechanisms for adjudicating
>> disagreements and accomplishing those goals. There are use cases and
>> requirements formulated. Finally, there is closure: a version of a
>> standard emerges, representing a stake in the ground. Is it perfect?
>> No, it never is. But it's reasonably good and useful. SUO has never had
>> this regimen. Note that I do not fault the SUO chair (who has
>> persevered and performed admirably under trying circumstances) for this
>> lack, but the SUO membership and perhaps the IEEE standardization
>> procedures: members have never assumed responsibility and the
>> procedures were not there to insist that they do.
>>
>> 3) Some members of SUO have in fact tried to sabotage prospective
>> success, arguing either about the impossibility of the task to create
>> an upper ontology or denigrating the contributions of other members
>> eager to make headway. This behavior ensures failure. A common upper
>> ontology is impossible because the SUO, organized to develop one, has
>> not done so. Uh, something wrong with that reasoning.
>>
>> 1-3 have driven many interested potential participants from the SUO,
>> and I am afraid in their current incarnation here may do the same for
>> ONTAC/COSMO.
>> ONTAC/COSMO needs dedicated and informed members to accomplish real
>> goals set out in a reasonable fashion, with deliverables. And use
>> cases/requirements to drive those. And structure that channels the
>> energy toward accomplishment.
>> Thanks,
>> Leo
>>
>>
>> _____________________________________________ Dr. Leo Obrst The
>> MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics lobrst@xxxxxxxxx Center
>> for Innovative Computing & Informatics Voice: 703-983-6770 7515
>> Colshire Drive, M/S H305 Fax: 703-983-1379 McLean, VA 22102-7508,
>> USA
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:ontac-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
>> Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2005 12:13 PM
>> To: ONTAC-WG General Discussion; CG
>> Cc: guarino@xxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [ontac-forum] Future directions for ontologies and
>> terminologies
>>
>> Following is an edited and slightly expanded version
>> of a note that I sent to the SUO list. I believe that
>> the conclusions I list below apply equally well to the
>> ONTAC efforts.
>>
>> John Sowa
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>>
>> I think most people have come to some conclusion like that:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Maybe because we all are becoming accustomed to the thinking
>>> that the SUO is a pipe dream and better to leave behind the
>>> listing and all associated with it.
>>>
>>
>>
>> When the SUO group was founded in 2000, most of us had some hope
>> that a useful upper ontology could be developed, but nobody was
>> able to agree on a common upper level. Some conclusions:
>>
>> 1. Everybody who develops an upper ontology has very different
>> and inconsistent axioms at the topmost levels.
>>
>> 2. Those inconsistencies at the top make it impossible to share
>> anything at the lower levels with any other ontology whose
>> lower levels depend on assumptions made at the top.
>>
>> 3. Yet people have been communicating successfully for thousands
>> of years with very few common assumptions about top-level
>> entities, such as time, place, object, process, etc.
>>
>> 4. Database systems have been interoperating successfully for
>> about 40 years with very few axioms or assumptions about
>> the top levels.
>>
>> 5. The most successful sharing in *all* fields -- science,
>> engineering, medicine, business, etc. -- has been based on
>> *terminology* at lower levels with very few, if any axioms
>> about the upper levels.
>>
>> 6. On the other hand, we do need axioms (and programs, which
>> are essentially compiled axioms) in order to do any kind of
>> detailed reasoning, computation, and problem solving.
>>
>> 7. Therefore, we should make a clear distinction between the
>> vocabularies or terminologies, which have very few axioms,
>> and the problem-oriented reasoning and computational
>> systems. For general purposes, sharing should be based on
>> the terminology. For reasoning and computation, the axioms
>> should be introduced at the lower, problem-oriented levels.
>>
>> In short, the hope of finding a detailed common set of axioms
>> at the upper levels is *DOOMED*. On the other hand, a very
>> simple upper level with very little detail would be possible.
>>
>> For example, the upper level might say that there exist such
>> things as objects and processes, but not make *any* distinction
>> between the two. The question of which things are objects and
>> which are processes would not be determined by axioms, but just
>> by listing them: a ball, a tree, and a house are objects, but
>> walking, cooking, and cleaning are processes.
>>
>> Some things, such as a star or a vortex could be listed without
>> any commitment to whether they're an object or a process. Then
>> one could talk (or reason) about the sun as an object for some
>> applications or a process for others. A hurricane could be
>> listed as a vortex, and it would be possible to reason about a
>> hurricane with either object-oriented or process-oriented axioms.
>>
>> That approach would accommodate both Whitehead's ontology, which
>> makes processes fundamental, and an ontology that makes objects
>> fundamental. In W's ontology, all objects, stars, and vortices
>> would be defined as types of processes, but there would be no
>> need to make that assumption in general.
>>
>> For any kind of detailed work in science and engineering,
>> Whitehead's ontology is more realistic, but for reasoning
>> about everyday things, it might be convenient to assume that
>> objects are the participants that constitute processes. For
>> some problems, one or another of those assumptions might be
>> preferable, but those detailed axioms should only be assumed
>> at the problem-oriented level, *not* at the upper levels.
>>
>> Another example is the question whether a vase and the lump
>> of clay from which it is made are one object or two. That is
>> another assumption that is very much problem dependent, and
>> it should *not* be a requirement enforced at the upper levels.
>> The only people who worry about such issues might be pottery
>> workers, and they have much more detailed problems to think about.
>>
>> The SUO work over the past five years has been interesting,
>> and we all learned a lot. But the most important thing we
>> learned is that assuming a fixed and frozen set of upper-level
>> axioms does not promote interoperability. Instead, the axioms
>> introduce irrelevant contradictions that are a major barrier
>> to communication and sharing. The solution is to minimize the
>> axioms at the top levels and to introduce them as needed at
>> the problem-oriented lower levels.
>>
>> John Sowa
>>
>>
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