[topicmapmail] what I mean by "context" and "bottom-up"

[Bernard VATANT]

Martin

Thank you for your different viewpoint. Anyway, maybe we have more
"definition problems" , coming for rather different contexts and
communities, than fundamental opposite views. Hope you won't consider the
following setting of "definition problems" like "hair-plitting" :o)

> 1. A community of contributors has to manage a context : define its
> ontology, scope, subjects, topics, names, associations, types, etc ...
and
> build the occurences data base.

Not necessarily "A community" - its often a set of communities, as the
current ebXML work for electronic business semantics illustrates clearly.

<definition problem>
As soon as people have to share their ontology, aren't they de facto a
community ... even if they don't feel like it to begin with? In maths, a
set is defined by the sharing of a common characteritic property, does that
definition hold there? It's true that the term "community" is widely used
now and maybe in a too fuzzy way. Since we are you and me there trying to
define things, do you feel like we are in the same community? There is kind
of bootstrapping definition : community is defined by the context they
share, context is defined by community sharing it.
</definition problem>

> I precise what I mean here by "context " : a field of knowledge, or
> interest, or activity, or experience (whatever) pragmatically bound by
the
> community of people sharing it and speaking a common language, meaning by
> that the semantics are non-ambiguous in the community.

I have a different view of context. To me it is the way of identifying
which subunits of the set of communities that built the onotology use the
topic for which processes. Most communities use a topic for more than one
process, but to understand accurately what they mean you have to understand
what process they are associating the term with at each of its occurrences.

<definition problem>
I agree that your definition is surely more experience-grounded and more
accurate and less naive than mine.
Ok to refine the context as follows : "field in which a set of people (call
it a community or not) use the same ontology to deal with the same
process". But it does not change the main point I'm up to: you can't define
context independently of people involved in it.
</definition problem>

Note that the context does not necessarily change the underlying ontology,
but can change the order in which items in the ontology are considered
relevant.

<definition problem>
"The order in which items are considered relevant"
Suppose you mean by that the association architecture.
I thought that was considered internal to ontology : what you mean by one
term in one context is linked to what you mean by associated terms, and the
way you associate them. What I understand is changing context does not
necessarily change the vocabulary, but the extension of terms semantics and
their eventual hierarchy, as you point out very accurately with engines and
cars.
</definition problem>

> The technical view is that whoever sets the "upper level", they are
> themselves a community (see SUO), and what they will call "general" is
only
> what they suppose at the moment to be general in their implicite
community
> ontology, which is *always* cultural-context biased, and will most
> certainly be irrelevant elsewhere.
> The political view is that their is no universal concept whatsoever, and
> trying to setting one is de facto trying to impose its own concept as
> universal. That's what I call "unique thought". It's an old trap we must
> always be aware of, because it's very temptative. Maybe I'm myself
falling
> in it right now, you'll tell me.

But for global trading you need a "universally accepted terminology", with
multiple names but one (translatable) definition.

<definition problem>
Of course, but global trading is itself a context ;-)
Don't get me wrong. From a technical viewpoint, standard terminology is
wonderful and I'm always amazed by the tremendous amount of work done in
this field, permitting to communicate as we do today. What I am up to is
more in the "education-information-opinion context" than in the
"trade-business context". Saying there is no universal set of concepts
through which analyze and organize all our thoughts and "views of the
world" is not necessarily in contradiction with a global agreement on
technical standards to communicate with.
</definition problem>

One of my main concerns in that debate is how to find safeguards against
technical standards imposing "thought standards". We know pretty well that
our use of specific technical tools shapes in some way our "view of the
world". Like it or not, my daily use of Microsoft products shapes somehow
the way I think, and puts me in the "MS users community" :(   ...  which
does not mean I share all of Bill Gates ontology (I've good reasons to
think it anyway)

Bernard VATANT
b.vatant@wanadoo.fr
www.universimmedia.com