- From: Mitch Kokar <mkokar@vistology.com>
- Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 11:38:15 -0500
- To: Kathryn B Laskey <klaskey@gmu.edu>
- Cc: public-xg-urw3@w3.org
- Message-Id: <45F5A790-242D-4BC8-BE21-95530F801CCD@vistology.com>
Kathy, In this case Wikipedia uses "empirical" as classification of "evidence", not "uncertainty". We have room for this in our Uncertainty Ontology under "Derivation". So far the derivation (evidence) has been sub-classified as either Objective or Subjective. Objective evidence could be further sub-classified into "Empirical" and (possibly) "Theoretical". ==Mitch On Jan 9, 2008, at 11:16 AM, Kathryn B Laskey wrote: > From Wikipedia: > > A central concept in science and the experiment or observation.[1] > It is usually differentiated from the philosophic usage of > empiricism by the use of the adjective "empirical" or the adverb > "empirically." "Empirical" as an adjective or adverb is used in > conjunction with both the natural and social sciences, and refers to > the use of working hypotheses that are testable using observation or > experiment. In this sense of the word, scientific statements are > subject to and derived from our experiences or observations. > > I don't think "John is tall" qualifies as an empirical assertion > because there is no way to test it using observation or experiment. > "John is 1.8 meters tall" is an empirical assertion. I can verify > it by performing an experiment. > > The term empirical is used by Morgan, M. G. and M. Henrion (1990). > Uncertainty: A Guide to Dealing with Uncertainty in Quantitative > Risk and Policy Analysis. New York, Cambridge University Press, to > refer to properties that can be verified by experiments, and to > which it is legitimate to assign probabilities. > > Kathy > > On Jan 8, 2008, at 3:22 PM, Mitch Kokar wrote: > >> >> Kath lies to your changes. >> >> On Jan 7, 2008, at 11:44 PM, Kathryn B Laskey wrote: >> >>> Mitch, >>> >>> I made a couple of changes to the uncertainty ontology. Please >>> look them over and let me know what you think. >>> >>> I was uncomfortable with the word "random" being used as broadly >>> as you use it. The standard usage of the term random connotes a >>> phenomenon that follows a statistical law. There is much >>> ontological debate over whether randomness in this sense really >>> exists. Most people would not use the label random for sentences >>> that have a definite but unknown truth-value -- such as whether >>> Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty. Nevertheless, we can apply >>> probability to such sentences (see the book on the Sacco and >>> Vanzetti case by Jay Kadane and Dave Schum). I took the liberty >>> of changing the ter ology page. I haven't changed any of the >>> diagrams, and if I'm overruled we can go back -- but I really >>> think this terminology is more appropriate. Then I made randomness >>> a subclass of empirical uncertainty. I chose this terminology >>> because that is the term used by Morgan and Henrion (1990), which >>> I have added to the reference list. It is an excellent reference >>> on uncertainty. >> >> I like your descriptions of Empirical. This is definitely a better >> description than what we had before for "Randomness". However, the >> name "empirical" seems to be strange here, but if you think this is >> the name to use, then I have no problem. The other opposite of >> "empirical" is "theoretical". So would you say that the other types >> (ambiguity, vagueness and inconsistency) are theoretical and not >> empirical? This might be the case, but it's just that I am not sure. >> >> I would prefer a different description of Randomness. You say >> "sentence is an instance of a class" - do we here? Could we just >> say that "there is a statistical law governing whether the possible >> worlds satisfy a sentence"? Or something of this sort? >> >>> >>> >>> I also don't think it's right to say for the case of randomness >>> that a sentence is satisfied in one of the worlds. An event in >>> probability theory is a sentence that has a definite truth-value >>> in each world (satisfies the clarity test) and is satisfied in a >>> subset of worlds. I changed the definition to correspond to this. >> >> Agreed (see above). >>> >>> I have issues with your definition of vagueness and ambiguity >>> also. For ambiguity, you say a sentence can be satisfied in many >>> worlds. Consider a sequence of 50 coin tosses, and consider the >>> sentence that the first toss is heads. This sentence is not >>> ambiguous. Its meaning i It is satisfied in 2^49 of the 2^50 >>> possible worlds. I looked at many definitions of ambiguity. It >>> means open to multiple interpretations; not clearly defined. I >>> changed the definition of ambiguity to "the referents of terms in >>> a sentence to the world are not clearly specified and therefore it >>> cannot be determined whether the sentence is satisfied". >> >> I like this. In my first attempt I wanted to capture exactly what >> you mentioned above - open to multiple interpretations. Your >> description captures this much better. >>> >>> I also changed vagueness to "there is not a precise correspondence >>> between terms in the sentence and referents in the world". The >>> prototypical example of vagueness is the concept of "tall" -- each >>> of the possible worlds specifies a definite height, but there is >>> no referent in the world for the term "tall." >>> >> The example of s exactly what I had mind, too. My intuition here >> points to fuzzy logic. The only problem with the description now is >> that vagueness looks very much like ambiguity. Perhaps we should >> make a reference to multi-valued logic here? >> >>> I am not thrilled with these definitions, but they are the best I >>> could do. I don't think the original definitions were tenable for >>> the reasons I've given. Does anyone care to comment or make >>> additional changes? >>> >>> I also added anchors to the wiki page, so that links can be >>> included to the WikiWords in the uncertainty ontology. For >>> example, go to the Discovery or Appointment Making use cases, >>> which have both now been annotated. If you click on, for example, >>> UncertaintyNature, it will take you to the place in the >>> uncertainty ontology where UncertaintyNature is defined. >>> >> >> On Dec 19, 2007, at 9:19 AM, Mitch Kokar wrote: >> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> In order to annotate the "buying speakers" scenario I had to extend >>> the Uncertainty Ontology a bit. Attached is a new version. Also >>> attached is a graphical representation of the annotation of the >>> scenario. I will explain the details in the telecon. >>> > ==Mitch >>> >>> Content-Disposition: attachment; >>> filename=Uncertainty-v2.owl >>> <Uncertainty-v2 1.owl><Picture 1 5.png> >> > > >
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Received on Wednesday, 9 January 2008 16:38:26 UTC