- From: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
- Date: Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:40:26 -0500
- To: ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net, "public-lod@w3.org" <public-lod@w3.org>
On 11/11/10 5:53 PM, John F. Sowa wrote: > Kingley, Alan, Doug, Chris, et al., John, Thanks! Just copying in LOD mailing list since I made a cc. mistake when starting this thread :-) > KI: >> ... maybe we could use this thread to arrive at obvious common >> ground re. data integration and the diminishing need for a >> syntax level lingua franca. > Many philosophers, politicians, computer programmers, and even > scientists have "one factor" theories, AKA "silver bullets." > They have a single magic slogan or principle, which they claim > solves everything or at least everything they think is important. > A lingua franca is useful, but it must be sufficiently broad > to support all the paradigms anybody requires. Yes. Others: read on... > AR: >> I think there *is* a need for a lingua franca for intercomputer >> communication. But I support the idea that there should be >> alternative syntaxes (as long as they can be clearly translated to >> the lingua franca). > That's fine. I have supported Common Logic because it is broad > enough to encompass a very wide range of popular methods and systems. > But even then I believe it is important to have more expressive power > than CL. That's why I would recommend the IKL extensions for the > next version of the CL standard. (And for research purposes, I would > encourage even more general studies.) > > AR: >> I haven't checked on CL, but IMO, it should have a normative >> syntax that is considered the one that projects should make sure >> they can produce, so as to remove the aforementioned barrier. > The CL standard is defined in terms of an abstract syntax. As Chris > said, the CLIF concrete syntax is sufficiently similar to KIF that it > is a de facto starting point for many projects. > > AR >> The main practical issue with using unrestricted CL is that there >> are few systems that can reason (in a predictable way) over it. > That misses the point. A restricted notation can only guarantee > predictable reasoning is for a very narrow range of problems. > That is "magic bullet" thinking. Any notation optimized for one > narrow range is guaranteed to be useless for infinitely many > equally worthy problems. > > Doug F. worked on the Cyc project, whose CycL language has the > expressive power of IKL, and Cyc has developed methodologies for > solving a wide range of problems in a predictable way within an > expressive framework. It supports a family of reasoning methods > for different kinds of problems under a very broad umbrella. I > endorse Doug's response: > > DF: >> Where is the problem here? An interlingua must be at least as powerful >> as the languages between which it is used to translate. Although >> knowledge bases which it is used to translate may not exercise all the >> capabilities of the interlingua, the interlingua could use higher order >> expressions. The systems which translate to and from the interlingua >> would be designed to do just that, and not act as generic theorem >> provers. > At a somewhat less expressive level than Cyc, but with a much larger > base of practical implementations, I would cite the UML diagrams, > each of which expresses a different subset of FOL. The major flaw > in the original version of UML is that they did not take the obvious > next step of using the common foundation (FOL) to map between the > different diagrams. More recently, they have mapped the UML diagrams > to Common Logic, but they haven't yet integrated those mappings with > their design methodologies. > > DF: >> One language that DOES have these features is one that has not been used >> for the Semantic Web because its native syntax is not RDF: CycL. CycL >> not only could be used to express mappings among different ontologies, >> but since it has its own massive ontology, hundreds of thousands of the >> ontology terms would already be expressed in the language. > I agree. But Lenat& Co. admitted that the IKL extensions to CL have > the same expressive power as CycL. In fact, the IKRIS project showed > that IKL could be used for interoperability in communications among > several different AI systems, including Cyc. > > At the end of this note is a slide from a talk I presented at the RuleML > conference in October. It summarizes the work of the IKRIS project for > demonstrating interoperability. See the full set of slides for details. > > CM: >> Common Logic... is a semantic framework that supports an unlimited >> number of alternative languages -- although it does not privilege >> any particular language (a.k.a., CL dialect) over any other >> (although the KIF-like dialect CLIF is sort of a default). > I agree, but I wouldn't claim that CL or even IKL, by itself, is > a magic bullet that can solve all problems. The full range of > problems is enormous, and the following slides are an attempt to > show the magnitude of the issues and some ways to address them: > > http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/iss > Integrating Semantic Systems > > Summary: You can't support interoperability among all IT systems > by narrowing the expressive power. Users always ask for *more*, > not less expressive power. Cyc and UML have shown how to avoid > getting trapped in a single-paradigm, magic-bullet approach: > use methodologies with an open-ended variety of design patterns > that can guarantee efficiency on different classes of problems. > > John > ____________________________________________________________________ > > Source: http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/clruleml.pdf > > IKRIS Project > > DoD-sponsored project: Design an Interoperable Knowledge > Language (IKL) as an extension to Common Logic. > > Goals: > > ● Enable interoperability among advanced reasoning systems. > ● Test that capability on highly expressive AI languages. > > Show that semantics is preserved in round-trip mapping tests: > > ● Cycorp: Cyc Language → IKL → CycL > ● RPI / Booz-Allen: Multi-Sorted Logic → IKL → MSL > ● Stanford/IBM/Battelle: KIF → IKL → KIF > ● KIF → IKL → CycL → IKL → MSL → IKL → KIF > > Conclusion: “IKRIS protocols and translation technologies > function as planned for the sample problems addressed.” > > Interoperable Knowledge Representation for Intelligence Support > (IKRIS), Evaluation Working Group Report, prepared by David A. Thurman, > Alan R. Chappell, and Chris Welty, Mitre Public Release Case #07-1111. > > http://nrrc.mitre.org/NRRC/Docs_Data/ikris/IKRIS_Evaluation_Report_31Dec06.doc > > _________________________________________________________________ > Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/ > Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/ > Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@ontolog.cim3.net > Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/ > Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ > To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J > To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net > -- Regards, Kingsley Idehen President& CEO OpenLink Software Web: http://www.openlinksw.com Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
Received on Thursday, 11 November 2010 23:40:55 UTC