Re: OWL Web Ontology Language

From: Adrian Walker <adrianw@snet.net>
Subject: Re: OWL Web Ontology Language
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:24:03 -0500

> Peter --
> 
> In reply to Hans, you wrote...
> 
> "Well, again, just what do you mean here?  Does Ford manufacture the class of
> Mustangs?  Does Ford manufacture some Mustangs?  Does Ford manufacture all
> Mustangs?  Does Ford necessarily manufacture all Mustangs?
> 
> What you probably want to say is something like
> 
> Class(Manufacturer partial)
> Individual(Ford type(Manufacturer))
> 
> ObjectProperty(manufactured-by Functional)
> 
> Class(Car partial)
> 
> Class(Mustang partial Car restriction(manufactured-by value(Ford)))"
> 
> 
> No argument with that, since you are the expert.
> 
> But consider the following scenario.  I'm in a team of 20 programmers 
> writing an application that uses an ontology containing the above 
> fragment.  How do I know which of many possible plain English meanings is 
> intended?  It seems I have to call up an expert to help me.  But if I call 
> two experts, I'll probably get different English glosses.  So, I'll just 
> program something and hope for the best.
> 
> To put it another way, it seems that a lot of meaning is still 
> missing.  What do you think?
> 
>                                         Cheers,    -- Adrian

Missing from what?  

Part of the difficulty of writing things down so that computers can process
them is being more precise that usual.  So, yes, I do agree that a lot of
meaning of often missing from English utterances, particularly English
utterances without context.

Another part of the difficult of writing things down so that computers can
process them is figuring out what parts of the meaning is important and what
parts can be written down in whatever formal language you are using.  So, yes,
I agree that most representations of information in computers are missing part
of the meaning of the original situation.

peter

Received on Friday, 17 March 2006 16:43:16 UTC