- From: Azamat <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>
- Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:55:36 +0200
- To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net>
- Cc: "'SW-forum'" <semantic-web@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <004401c88483$6c1b4d90$010aa8c0@homepc>
Monday, March 10, 2008 9:19 PM, John A. Yanosy wrote:
> Is not an ontology such a system for classifying real world objects and enabling all kinds of inferences to be possible as a result of being a member of that classification in the ontology model?
Yes, it is. Ontology is all about the natures of real things and relationships, about the natural hierarchy of distinct kinds and relationships constraining (or guiding) the world behaivour. Ontological representations and models are accordingly about basic meanings and classifications, about most fundamental categories, definitions, axioms and rules. It is also about unity and integrity and unification than analysis and diversity, oneness and sameness than many, class than individual, universal than particular.
> I am a(n) human being, live being, father, husband, employee, engineer, EE, U.S. citizen, male, voracious reader, tennis player, political activist, moderately healthy person, investor, Chair of NCOIC working group, happily married person, qualified driver, registered voter, taxpaying citizen, lover of literature, chief architect, systems engineer, amateur gardener, transplanted New Englander in Texas, tea drinker, wine lover, honest person...
You might also be adventurer, capitalist, creator, experimenter, expert, individualist, lover, reader, leader, money dealer, subject, religious person, worker, Slav or Jew or Russian, White or Black, occultist, visionary or warrior, or witness.
This all are accidents. Of the five universal predicates, class or genus, difference or differentia, definition, property, and accident, ontology is least about individual properties of things. For its area are the generic natures common to all kinds (animals) or the specific natures common to all individuals (humans). Re. ''person'', ontology specifies its nature, essence or basic meaning or definition like as ''a human being endowed with rationality, knowledge or intelligence''. It classifies human beings as natural kinds and cultural beings. It determines all the basic classes of persons, all the major traits and characters (differences or differentia) common to the members of this class of entities. Accidental natures or individual properties of human beings are out of interest for genuine ontology modeling.
> My understanding is that a good ontology would represent some form of accepted social knowledge about a classification concept in some context, thus enabling personal perceptions to be placed in a larger social ontology model of semantic interpretation. I imagine each person would then determine whether the larger social ontology models is consistent with their own ontology model, and if not then inform others about this disagreement.
This approach is known as the constructivist position, where the ''conceptions'' of intelligent agents are viewed as a critical thing in the world representation. Real things are regarded here as mental constructions and vice versa. Another critical concept is ''inter-subjective reality', the collectively agreed and negotiated representations of things. There has been a project striving for a global information systems conceptual framework in such a way, named FRISCO, http://cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?id=445. As its result, the developers declared 100 core concepts, added with the number of assumptions and definitions. Although, they used fundamental ontology and semiotics, the wrong assumptions about the world and its relationship with knowing agents put a conceptual obstacle to its further progress.
Azamat Abdoullaev
EIS Encyclopedic Intelligent Systems LTD
http://www.eis.com.cy
----- Original Message -----
From: jayanosy@rockwellcollins.com
To: [ontolog-forum]
Cc: 'SW-forum' ; [ontolog-forum] ; ontolog-forum-bounces@ontolog.cim3.net ; Golda Velez
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2008 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] semantic definition
Thanks so much for the very informative and comprehensive ideas. They truly inform one about the scope of ontologies, the concept of information sharing for further classification and inferences in multiple ontologies, determining when adding instances to an ontology for classification and inference purposes is consistent with a contributor's perception, and informing others about ontologies not consistent with real world perceptions by a community. Here are some thoughts I have been tring to udnerstand about the use of ontologies.
Here are some example classifications of myself, which I believe would result in further ontologies to enable inferences to be made in each domain of discourse.
I am a(n) human being, live being, father, husband, employee, engineer, EE, U.S. citizen, male, voracious reader, tennis player, political activist, moderately healthy person, investor, Chair of NCOIC working group, happily married person, qualified driver, registered voter, taxpaying citizen, lover of literature, chief architect, systems engineer, amateur gardener, transplanted New Englander in Texas, tea drinker, wine lover, honest person...
We as humans don't seem to have a significant problem with accepting and using these terms to classify someone and inferring all kinds of other knowledge about that classification for that person so classified, once a dialog is established to place the classification in some context and the appropriateness of the classification, e.g., some ontology for instance.
Is not an ontology such a system for classifying real world objects and enabling all kinds of inferences to be possible as a result of being a member of that classification in the ontology model?
Different classifications in different ontology models will have different inferences appropriate for that model. Most of the above classifications probably have different ontology models depending on other related classification concepts. I hope that the linking of common points such as Person across these models may enable inferences to be made about the same referent in different ontologies, once the appropriate instances associated with other concepts in these ontologies are populated for the original instance.
My understanding is that a good ontology would represent some form of accepted social knowledge about a classification concept in some context, thus enabling personal perceptions to be placed in a larger social ontology model of semantic interpretation. I imagine each person would then determine whether the larger social ontology models is consistent with their own ontology model, and if not then inform others about this disagreement.
I can imagine all kinds of situations where an ontology is not inconsistent with a person's perspective, but the ontology is not sufficient for the communicative purposes of the person sharing information.
This leads to the interesting problem of how to share information about a perceived real world object in a manner with minimal classifications, so that it can be further classified according to the domain of interest by other classifiers, of course with the assistance of the original perception.
Best Regards,
John A. Yanosy Jr.
Cell: 214-336-9875
PH: 972-705-1807
Email: JAYANOSY@rockwellcollins.com
"Azamat" <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>
Sent by: ontolog-forum-bounces@ontolog.cim3.net
03/08/2008 01:34 PM Please respond to
"[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net>
To "Golda Velez" <gv@btucson.com>
cc 'SW-forum' <semantic-web@w3.org>, "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net>
Subject [ontolog-forum] semantic definition
On Thursday, March 06, 2008 9:55 PM, Golda Velez wrote:
> I think assuming that definitions are factual rather than personal
> representations of reality is one of > the reasons that there has been
> some problems getting domain ontologies created. I
> remember reading a quote from a US Senator, that whoever is in charge of
> the
> definitions wins the argument. Rules and definitions beg for discussion
> in
> any field that is under 100 years old...
I was surprised that the issues of definition, its nature, kinds, meaning,
demonstration, and formalization, has not received a separate thread and
careful discussion both on the semantic web and ontology forums. Since it is
hardly to find another notion so decisive for ontology and semantic web
...and so muddled and vague. For currently the definitions [as giving the
meanings of expressions, symbols, constructs, or things] might be
constructed by reference to:
classification or dichotomy (classificatory definition);
properties (genus&differentia) (essential definition);
parts, accidental properties (ostensive definition)
context (contextual definition);
cause, genesis, origin (genetic or genealogical definition);
end or purpose (stipulative definition);
interest (pragmatic definition);
common use (dictionary definition);
induction (recursive definition);
intension (connotation) (intensional or connotative definition);
extension (denotation) (extensional definition).
Such inconsistency of definition is a cause of diverse views of meaning
itself, which is defined as in:
idea, thought or intention;
operation, measurement, and computation;
usage, utility;
truth condition;
sense, intension, connotation, content;
reference, extension, denotation;
sense and reference together.
A definition may be qualified as consistent and contradictory, true or
false, arbitrary or real, proved or unproved, accidental or essential,
formal or material, nominal or real.
It is stated that many axioms of the sciences, formal and theoretical, are
nothing but definitions in disguise. That definition is formal and precise
unlike description, explanation, interpretation. And that formally it is a
kind of an equivalence relation where the left side (the definiendum, that
which is to be defined) is a function of the right side (definiens, that
which defines, determines, specifies).
The most prospective method of defining seems to be a semantic real
definition, where the definition involves the primary meaning (key
denotation cum major connotation) of a word, a phrase, a symbol, a concept
or an entity, so that it states the nature of the object defined and is
convertible with its subject. The semantic definition is a relatively stable
construct. Although, it is liable to the controlled redefinition as far as
the knowledge of the world progresses, but this updating should not be
something unpredicted or unforeseen, a radically new definition.
There is an example of motherhood, the family relationship between an
offspring and the female parent. Presently, a child may have mothers as
diverse as natural mother, biological mother, adopting mother, step mother,
surrogate mother, cloning mother, etc. When we use a standard nominal
definition of mother as {''a woman giving birth to a child''), we are
missing all possible kinds of motherhood. When we use a real definition (''a
woman parenting (producing, begetting or raising) a child''), verified by
experimentation, we can cover all the key senses of motherhood.
Re ''the personal representations of reality'', being a sort of nominal
definitions and usually having nothing to do with the nature of things, such
definitions are not harmful as far as they used for specific personal
purposes, but most harmful then presented as the scientific and objective
definitions. One may define erotica as '' a creative activity to stimulate a
reproductive activity'', capitalism as '' an economic system based on
exploitation and profiteering'', political party as ''an organization to
gain power by revolution'', business as ''a commercial activity to
profiteer'', etc., thus creating an unreal world.
The same reasoning applies to defining ontology, ontological classes,
computing ontology, ontology engineering, ontology languages and tools,
semantics, semantic concepts, semantic systems, semantic web, semantic web
technologies, etc.
Here I met a conference definition of semantic interoperability as ''the
common automatic interpretation of the meaning of the exchanged information,
i.e. the ability to automatically process the information in a
machine-understandable manner.'' Now I wonder what sort of definition it
might be: nominal, extensional, pragmatic, ostensive.
azamat abdoullaev
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: 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 Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: 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 Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@ontolog.cim3.net
Received on Wednesday, 12 March 2008 20:56:02 UTC