- From: adasal <adam.saltiel@gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 22:41:49 +0100
- To: semantic-web@w3.org
- Message-ID: <e8aa138c0604011341w10c650a0j511a7065bfc009e6@mail.gmail.com>
I promissed some details about projects in the EU. This is also in reply to Azmat who said:- > In order to lay down the knowledge infrastructures of the upcoming > Information Society the EU's Research Council and the European Parliament > allocated 3.8 billion Euro for Knowledge Technologies within the 6thEuropean Union Framework Programme > (FP6) for Research and Technological Development, with a total budget of > 17.5 billion Euro. Within the FP6 Programme, all the web-based knowledge > technology projects are largely concerned with ontology research, design, > learning, and management. > I should say immiediately that I don't see billions (1000 x millions) of Euro's in this, but my figure is for projects across one year (but a years funding would be far less, this is funding across a year for projects that last several years. It is a bit uncear to me if this is just ongoing funding, or agreed funding for 2006. I think the former, so the figures are far lower than you suggest.) I have done the following. Searched the Cordis web site for all projects in the 2006 6th Framework that use the word "semantic" in their description. Truth is the Cordis web site is a mess. It returns duplicates because it can't establish that a project with a code 012345 and 12345 is the same. Moreover it make copy and paste into a spread sheet very difficult (not a design consideration, but why not?). And on ... I thought it unnecessary to look at other years, so I take 2006 as representative. In millions of Euro:- Project Funding Cost 241.74 181.36 Companies will make up the difference between these two figures. Number of projects:- 46 with avg. value ~ 5.25 All of the projects involve one or more University. Non EU countries include:- Country no. projects TURKEY 3 AUSTRALIA 2 ROMANIA 2 LIECHTENSTEIN 1 CANADA 1 CHINA 1 UNITED STATES 1 LITHUANIA 1 ICELAND 1 Clearly in this group there is no relationship between their size and number of projects, but this is not the case for the bulk of the projects with the top few supporting as follows:- GERMANY 88 FRANCE 46 ITALY 45 GREECE 40 SPAIN 39 UNITED KINGDOM 33 I am only giving these figures as it does indicate a huge amount of activity entailing a single very central theme, essentially semantics in web based technologies. (Certainly not just ontology related research as suggested by Azmat.) From this prespective I think it understandable that I am disappointed that John Sowa's work is not more obviously represented. I also pay head to John's point that not all eggs should be in one basket as, in a way, they are for the 6th Frame Work, since there seems to me a great deal of overlap, repetition and reinvention of the same underlying technologies, rather than reuse of established techniques and methods. In regard to modularity and reuse it seems that there is no established policy on making project results available in the public domain. Some projects produce Open Source artifacts, while many do not. It doesn't seem appropriate to elaborate the consequences of this here. I admit my analysis is by no means complete or necessarily accurate on these points. I understand that, even with an average of 5.25M euro, it is by no means a simple or straight forward business to undertake funded research, but the naive thought remains that it would be well for the Information Society to make John Sowa's work central to one of these projects. I do think that this is relevant to this list as there is a question as to what the semantic web is and, however that is answered, one aspect is that it is what it is shaped to become. Surely this level of funding will have a considerable, if not decisive influence? Of course the other strand, I don't know how related, is that of the ground swell towards folksonomies. I would think that the just announced ActiveRDF for Ruby would act in this direction. I personally am fascinated and would like to investigate this sort of approach. There is a link between the popular and the subversive, how this will play out in the end e.g. will we end up with something like what ensued due to the invention of the pop song format - a whole culture - I can't guess. But let me use what Peter Maxwell Davies has said about popular music as an analogy when he said he doesn't listen to it because it is repetitious, without structure or interest. Although it may be fun in other ways, there is a need for architectural form and that can only come out of hard work, hard thought and thorough knowledge as evidenced in these discussions. Adam On 01/04/06, John F. Sowa <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote: > > Chris, > > I just want to comment on some seemingly minor points from > a couple of your notes that hide a very big elephant: > > CM> ... more or less standard treatments [of extensional, > > intensional, pragmatic and modal approaches] > > CM> I rather admire Bunge's work, especially his emphasis > > on the construction of rigorous formal theories but, for > > good or ill, he has not been terribly influential, and > > his ideas are somewhat outside the mainstream. > > The words "standard" and "mainstream" suggest that there is > some degree of consensus. Unfortunately, whatever consensus > exists is highly fragmented and people who subscribe to one > fragment never cite and seldom read the works of people who > subscribe to a different fragment. > > As you well know, many highly influential people, such > as Quine from the formal perspective and the lexical > semanticists from the informal perspective, say that none > of these attempts to formalize modality, intentionality, > etc., are likely to capture what people say in ordinary > language. Quine also claims that none of them are likely > to be of any use for scientific language. For a summary > of Quine's mature views on the subject, see his 1981 book > _Theories and Things_ . > > I'd also like to throw some other quotations into the pot > from people who deserve considerable respect on the basis > of their many years of research on related issues. > > In his book _Beyond Analytic Philosophy_, Hao Wang (1986), > a former PhD student of Quine's and a former assistant to > Kurt Goedel, characterized Quine's approach as "logical > negativism": > > Quine merrily reduces mind to body, physical objects to > (some of) the place-times, place-times to sets of sets of > numbers, and numbers to sets. Hence, we arrive at a purified > ontology which consists of sets only.... I believe I am not > alone in feeling uncomfortable about these reductions. What > common and garden consequences can we draw from such grand > reductions? What hitherto concealed information do we get from > them? Rather than being overwhelmed by the result, one is > inclined to question the significance of the enterprise itself. > > In support of his views, Want quoted a personal letter from > C. I. Lewis, the founder of the modern systems of modal logic, > about the state of philosophy in 1960: > > It is so easy... to get impressive 'results' by replacing the > vaguer concepts which convey real meaning by virtue of common > usage by pseudo precise concepts which are manipulable by > 'exact' methods — the trouble being that nobody any longer > knows whether anything actual or of practical import is being > discussed. > > Barbara Partee, who has probably done more to promote Montague's > ideas among linguists than anyone else, has admitted that the > formal semanticists have not even begun to come to grips with > the work of the lexical semanticists, which is much more relevant > to defining the kinds of words and concepts that people actually > use, both in ordinary language and in scientific treatises: > > In Montague's formal semantics the simple predicates of the > language of intensional logic (IL), like love, like, kiss, > see, etc., are regarded as symbols (similar to the "labels" > of [predicate calculus]) which could have many possible > interpretations in many different models, their "real meanings" > being regarded as their interpretations in the "intended model". > > Formal semantics does not pretend to give a complete > characterization of this "intended model", neither in terms > of the model structure representing the "worlds" nor in terms > of the assignments of interpretations to the lexical constants. > The present formalizations of model-theoretic semantics are > undoubtedly still rather primitive compared to what is needed > to capture many important semantic properties of natural > languages.... There are other approaches to semantics that > are concerned with other aspects of natural language, perhaps > even cognitively "deeper" in some sense, but which we presently > lack the tools to adequately formalize. > > This excerpt is from Lecture 4 of a course she presented in 2005: > http://people.umass.edu/partee/RGGU_2005/RGGU05_formal_semantics.htm > > And, of course, you can't ignore the logician Peter Geach, who > dismissed Montague's work as "Hollywood semantics". > > I have some sympathy with all of the above, but I'm not completely > convinced by any of them. At this point, I would not bestow the > term "standard" or "mainstream" on any of these approaches, and I > would definitely *not* recommend that any of them be adopted as > the foundation for any "standard" ontology. But I would say that > any of them might be used in an optional module in some ontology, > if they proved to be useful for some particular problem. > > > John > > >
Received on Saturday, 1 April 2006 21:41:58 UTC