Precision and Clarity in Formulating Ontologies and Axioms -- RE: SUO: Re: Proposed SUO Content Outline
John, and all,
Perhaps it could be worthwhile for people to try stating their proposed
axioms and ontology concepts in ACE or some variant of ACE, with additional
free-form English discussion?
This could have the advantage of moving towards more precision and clarity
in formulating and communicating ideas..(?)
Just a thought,
Phil Jackson
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> [mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org]On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2001 7:00 PM
> To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: Re: SUO: Re: Proposed SUO Content Outline
>
>
>
> Adam,
>
> In principle, I would be happy to do that, but...
>
> >If you'd be willing to restate the axioms in your section 2 in KIF, and
> >either consistent with, or, with mention of inconsistencies with, the
> >current proposed "merged ontology" I think that would be a great aid to
> >communication.
>
> I would like to do that. But just one point about KIF: I don't
> consider KIF an aid to communication between humans -- on the
> contrary, the "merged ontology" would be vastly easier for all
> of us to understand if it were documented in the way I have
> tried to document the underlying concepts in my paper on
> processes and causality.
>
> That doesn't mean I am against using KIF. But I want to strike
> a balance between two different goals:
>
> 1. Formulating our ideas in a form that is comparable to the
> usual mathematical textbooks, which interleave each formula
> with a great deal of discussion directed toward human
> readers rather than computers.
>
> 2. Translating the resulting formulas into a computable
> notation, such as KIF, CGs, DAML, OIL, RDF, or whatever.
>
> Of these two activities, the first is much harder, much more
> important, and much more time consuming. Once the first task
> is completed, the second is trivial in comparison. (But I also
> recognize the importance of doing both tasks in parallel and
> iteratively -- start with #1, do some of #2, test the results
> on a computer, and repeat with a refinement and extension of
> #1 and then #2 and back again.)
>
> So to answer your request: yes, eventually. But there is
> a lot of writing to do in a precise, mathematical style for
> human readers before writing tons of KIF would be useful.
>
> John Sowa
>