[topicmapmail] SUMO

[Murray Altheim]

Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> * Murray Altheim
> | 
> | What I'm more trying to get at is a "meta-ontology" language, just
> | the bare-bones of what is used to create something like SUMO. I'm
> | not sure how bare that can be, and as I've said, I have quite a lot
> | of skepticism that any level of commitment can be in any way
> | considered "universal".
> 
> Hmmmm. Isn't what you are describing topic maps? Sure, topic maps
> include some PSIs for class/instance and so on, but you don't have to
> use them. I guess what I'm asking is how your meta-ontology language
> would be different from topic maps. Would it be a set of PSIs? If so,
> what kinds of things were you thinking of putting in there?

I don't quite know how to grok your question. Topic Maps are a specific
paradigm or methodology for mapping concepts by subject, if you will.
When I think of "ontology" there are certainly some overlaps, but I
think of Topic Maps as a *tool* for describing ontologies, not as the
semantics of an ontology. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, as
that sounds like where you're headed to me.

So in that case, if I was to describe an ontology using topic maps
or some other graph approach (such as existential or conceptual
graphs), a "set of PSIs" would essentially be a set of ontological
commitments. But I've been thoroughly disabused of that notion by
the SCL group, though I will of course have to ignore that.

> | (funny how one can be deluded into thinking there's somewhere an
> | island of objectivity, even with my training as a Taoist... duh).
> 
> :-)
> 
> If you want to escape ontological commitment entirely I think you can
> just as well give up now. You won't be able to use topic maps, nor
> even something with less commitment, like RDF. The end of that road is
> probably something very like Zen, and I'm not sure you'll be able to
> use it for anything.

I often think of an island or a monastery. But I'm here not trying to
escape ontological commitment entirely, I'm simply trying to minimalize
it. I don't think of RDF as having less commitment than topic maps, but
more. But they're apples and oranges in this sense.

OTOH I don't think the end of this road is useless, indeed, I was kinda
hoping it might serve as the ultimate use in being the basis for building
other things.

> The other thing is that as you add ontological commitment you increase
> interoperability, though of course at the cost of narrowing your field
> of operations.

Yes, and that's what worries me. Dan quoted a message from the SUMO
list, a list that also included a message from Jon Awbrey, who I
correspond with fairly regularly:

   http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/suo/email/msg09622.html

I would say (from my understanding of Jon's work, which I don't claim
to be in any way complete) that taking a road as fundamental as that
taken by some of the seemingly "fundamental" logics is in direct
conflict with other legitimate approaches, Differential Logic one I
have been leaning towards philosophically (based in C.S. Peirce). My
biggest problem with DL is that I can't figure out how to implement
it -- it's complex, just like the real world. No "cat on mat".

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

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