Re: [semanticweb] how to explain to humans the term ontology

Paola wrote:
''Thanks Azamat for picking up my question about 'one ontology = one view of 
the world'. I have had the perception over the years  that people have been 
trying to obtain an unified view of the world.''
''When we  model reality in its depth and complexity, and look beyhond 
systems boundaries, we realise that everything in the known universe  is
 related to everything else, and that  a few  common elements constitute its 
substance , and a few universal axioms,  determine the behaviour of 
everything.''

Your insight into the matter is amazing, you grasped the core issue of UFO 
and its tendency to surpass all the possible limitations by integrating 
various types of particular sciences, specific models, and modeling 
languages, such as semantic web languages. Indeed, the gist of the matter 
lies in the issue of boundary, bounds, and limits, as {some entities 
restricting, delimiting, constraining the being [existence, extent, action 
or relationship] of something else}. We need to see that the boundary by its 
nature is always coming from the outside, it is imposed or enforced as the 
environment of all sorts, surroundings, ecology, ambience, medium, scene, 
setting and other exterior circumstances and sutiations, of which the 
largest context is the physical universe, the totality of boundary 
conditions.
So whenever you do something, you have to encounter the boundaries imposed 
from outside universe, by means of its objective laws, principles, and other 
constraints. Being a congenitally bounded-inclined creature, a human being 
is used to resolve its problems by marking the specific area of inquiry, the 
sphere of activity, or the domain of interest, thus implicitly drawing the 
line between things, separating the whole world into many different parts 
without keeping their inherent harmony and unity.

As a matter of fact, there is only one entity in existence which is 
virtually not limited, the Universe [owl:Thing], the totality of things 
which may be limited only by hypothetical Nothing [owl: Nothing], so 
engulfing all sorts and manner of distinctions and differentiations and 
beings between the top and lower bounds, and thus also placing limits of our 
knowledge of the world.
As you well noted, the global model of things as UFO implies  transcending 
the 'systems boundaries' by considering as the object of inquiry not only 
some particular systems and levels of reality but rather the largest 
self-consistent system [the world itself]. My mapping the reality's content 
[constitution, states, dynamics, and entity relationships] onto its true 
representations and reasoning mechanisms in our minds, in our computing 
models, in emerging semantic artefacts and applications, such as 
Onto-Semantic WWW. And this all within one human knowledge integration 
context [UFO frame] both consolidating and validating all kinds of 
conceptual modelings, languages, personal perspectives, ideas, views, 
positions, and attitides.
This may be decsribed as the mapping function  from the unbounded universe 
onto an unlimited information space of knowledge resources and reasoning 
machines, or simply: [UFO: the World > the OntoSemantic Web&Intelligent 
Internet].

kind regards,
Azamat Abdoullaev
http://www.eis.com.cy




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pdm" <editor@content-wire.com>
To: "Azamat" <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>
Cc: <editor@content-wire.co>; <semanticweb@yahoogroups.com>; 
<semantic-web@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: [semanticweb] how to explain to humans the term ontology


>
>
> Thanks Azamat for picking up my question about 'one ontology = one view of 
> the world'
> I have had the perception over the years  that people have been trying to 
> obtain an unified view of the world
> :-)
>
>>
>>
>> Knowingly or unknowingly, we are all after a unified framework ontology 
>> (UFO) integrating upper-level ontologiesgeneral modelling languages (as 
>> semantic web ontologies, UML, OO programming languages, etc.) as well all 
>> the mutitude of domain-specific ontologies and perspectives.
>
>  This means a UFO does not contradict nor exclude the existance of a 
> multitude of differnet domain ontologies, rather, it is based on it  (
> right?)
>
> In order to be 'valid'  I guess it will have to serve every possible 
> purpose and be useable by every possible application
> (I ll be intrested to see the validdity of a UFOs tested )
>
>> The history of all science is marked by the quest of most unifying 
>> theories and models about the world and its parts, like a theory of 
>> everything [physical] in theoretical physics.  But, unlike this, Ontology 
>> is a formal theory of everything [physical, chemical, biological, mental, 
>> social, cultural, or informational, as web resources].
>
>
> The problem with science, is that it only considers 'true' whatever it can 
> understand'/proof., and that science itself is coming to terms
> with its own limitations.
>
> Science  does not model reality in its entirety either, but only the parts 
> of reality that it knows,  the rest, whatever it cannot explain, it 
> disregards, or at least, it does not take into account. (That includes so 
> many natural and social phenomena)
>
> A unified view of the world  includes, and is based on, all the (valid) 
> views that exist. The validation of a ontology - proof of concept - its is 
> usefulness to the
> purpose for which it was created (correct me if I am wrong)
>
> In systems development  the first  essential step system is 'determining 
> the boundaries', and the systems interface with
> other systems boundaries.  kind of ' what are we looking at' question.
>
> Of course it would be nice to 'look at everything'  but that somehow may 
> shift the system focus away from its functional goal.
> So we make arbitrary distinctions, approximations and some compromises, to 
> make our (applied) work 'feasibile'.
> Here is maybe where theoretical and applied work have two different 
> dimensions.
>
> A boundary allows me to indenfity and hold true certain conditions within 
> the system that I can refer to as 'axioms'. Without which, the system 
> would not be able to
> accomplish its goals
>
> The ability of that system to work outside such boundaries, is what I 
> think we are tyring to achieve with web services
> :-)  and it implies the ability to transcend   boundaries - system 
> taboos? - and still achieve its (expanded) goals.
>
> This  may imply a shift in the initial goals:
>
> When we  model reality in its depth and complexity, and look beyhond 
> systems boundaries, we realise that everything in the known universe  is 
> related to everything else, and that  a few  common elements constitute 
> its substance , and a few universal axioms,  determine the behaviour of 
> everything .
>
> When it comes toa valid ontology, its pobably useful to be able to look at 
> the world both ways: from an individual 'user' perspective, and from a 
> global 'domain' perspective (the sum of all knowledge)
>
> Whatever is likely to be 'true' in all  instances, may well be worth 
> modelling.
>
> Thats where science and philosophy merge.
>
>
> Paola Di Maio
>
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Received on Friday, 13 January 2006 14:24:19 UTC