SUO: SUO Re: Proposed SUO Content Outline
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
John Sowa wrote:
>
> Dear Matthew and Ian,
>
> Every term on your outline is necessary for a complete system
> of knowledge representation. Indeed, all of these terms have
> been used for many years in mathematics and physics, and they
> have been formalized, axiomatized, and reasoned and computed
> with in great depth in many different ways for a long time.
>
> The big question is not whether they belong in the SUO.
> The answer to that is simple: yes, of course.
>
> Even the issue of writing definitions and axioms for them
> is not a big problem. There are plenty of axiomatizations
> for all of them that can be taken out of the literature of
> math, logic, and physics, dusted off, and translated into
> KIF, CGs, and many other notations.
>
> One issue that has to be recognized:
> all those axioms were designed for different purposes,
> and they use very different primitives. As an example,
> I use the Eulerian and Langrangian systems of coordinates
> for fluid mechanics. Many of the same phenomena can be
> represented in either one, but the representations have
> very different structures and relationships. That is
> true of all those categories in the outline: there are
> many, many different coordinate systems and representations
> that have been used, all of them are valuable for different
> purposes, but the relationships between them are very far
> from clear. Taking one coordinate system instead of another
> is a purely arbitrary choice, and you have to know how they
> are related before you can make a rational decision about
> how they should be positioned in the ontology.
>
> The first thing that has to be determined is which of these issues
> belong to the logic, which of them belong to the ontology, how the
> logic relates to the ontology, and how the logic and the ontology
> relate to the real world and/or any possible world, situation,
> state of affairs, etc. And the next thing is how can you reason
> about them with the logic and talk about them with language(s)
> you want to use.
Some folks I know say that our ontology, that is to say,
"what ought to be our ontology", is related to the level
of formal, logical, & mathematical description in the way
that invariants are related to the transformations between
representations over which they are in fact the invariants.
This brings in a slightly novel perspective, in that,
even though we tend to think of our ontology as being
on the reality-side of our representational interface,
it is by operations on the inner-face of this carapace
that we come to acquire a re-constituted image of being.
This is connected, I imagine, to that algebraic principle
by which the "double dual" is closely akin to the original,
all of which happens, sure enough, only under ceratin cases.
Jon Awbrey
> We all know that the knowledge representation must accommodate individuals,
> states, events, space, time, space-time, process, activity, agents, etc.
> But you cannot start to put these things into a hierarchy until you have
> a very clear idea of what these things are, how you can refer to them in
> logic, how they are classifiable by the ontology (Note: classifiable is
> a prerequisite to being classified), and how they relate to what is in
> the world, what is perceived by humans, animals, or robots, how evidence
> for them is obtained, etc.
>
> Only after these questions are answered, does it become
> possible to say where you can position the categories in
> the hierarchy, outline, or whatever you want to call it.
>
> Compared to that, questions like the following
> are a tiny, insignificant little nit:
>
> > MW: Do you have some things in the merged ontology that are not found here?
> >
> > (e.g. holes).
>
> We still haven't answered where the concepts of Circle, Sphere, and Cube belong.
> When we know where those belong, then maybe we can begin to talk about holes in
> a cube or sphere.
>
> All of Ian's questions about the following list are well taken,
> but that is barely scratching the surface of the ones that must
> be addressed before we can put these topics into some ordering:
>
> > > > 1. Thing
> > > > 1.1. Individual
> > > > 1.1.1. State
> > > > 1.1.1.1. Period of Time
> > > > 1.1.1.2. Activity
> > > > 1.1.1.3. Physical Object
> > > > 1.1.1.3.1. Materialised Physical Object
> > > > 1.1.1.3.2. Functional Physical Object
> > > > 1.1.1.3.3. Stream
> > > > 1.1.2. Temporal Boundary
> > > > 1.1.2.1. Point in Time
> > > > 1.1.2.2. Event
> > > > 1.2. Collection
> > > > 1.2.1. Class
> > > > 1.2.1.1. Class of Individual
> > > > 1.2.1.1.1. Quantifiable Property
> > > > 1.2.1.1.2. Role
> > > > 1.2.1.1.3. Status
> > > > 1.2.1.1.4. Organisational Level
> > > > 1.2.1.1.4.1. Shape
> > > > 1.2.1.1.5. Information Pattern
> > > > 1.2.1.2. Class of Class
> > > > 1.2.1.2.1. Number
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2. Class of Relation
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2.1. Specialisation
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2.2. Unit of Measure Mapping of Property to Number Space
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2.3. Class of Representation
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2.3.1. Identification
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2.3.2. Definition
> > > > 1.2.1.2.2.3.3. Description
> > > > 1.2.1.3. Relation
> > > > 1.2.1.3.1. Classification
> > > > 1.2.1.3.2. Cause and Effect
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3. Whole-Part
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.1. Fusion Whole-Part
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.2. Arrangement Whole-Part
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.3. Assembly Whole-Part
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.4. Feature Whole-Part
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.5. Temporal Whole-Part
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.6. Participation in Activity
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.7. Temporal Bounding of State
> > > > 1.2.1.3.3.8. Containment of Individual
> > > > 1.2.1.3.4. Connection
> > > > 1.2.1.3.5. Temporal Sequence
> > > > 1.2.1.3.6. Involvement in Activity
> > > > 1.2.2. Set
>
> Every level of this outline raises very serious questions about why things
> are placed on that level, how they are related to their siblings or their
> parents and children. Why, for example, is "period of time" under "state"?
> What is time? Why is "cause and effect" a sibling node of "whole-part"?
> What is causality? How does causality relate to time? Which is more
> fundamental, time or causality? Which one presupposes the other
> in its definition? Why?
>
> Having a laundry list of items to be considered is useful.
> But without a very serious answer to all these questions,
> it should not considered as anything that has any more
> structure than a laundry list.
>
> John Sowa
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤