Re: SUO: Negotiation Instead of Legislation
At 2:31 AM -0500 2/21/02, John F. Sowa wrote:
>Chris,
>
>There is another very important point, which we both
>understand, but which we are looking at from different
>points of view: distinctions are very important.
Right.
>What I maintain: the distinctions are even important than
>the categories and the hierarchies. Instead of handing anyone
>a prepackaged ontology with a hierarchy of distinctions, I
>would prefer to give them a system that can recreate a new
>ontlogy on the fly from whatever selection of distinctions
>are important for their problem.
Yes, I absolutely agree
>
>>... I can't help but observe that your architecture paper
>>mentions an upper level as a component!
>
>Yes, I have to admit that I have been wavering on this issue.
>But I am coming to the conclusion that you don't need a single
>fixed upper level -- you can create whatever upper level you
>need from the choice of distinctions that are important to
>your problem.
I agree with this as well. But I don't see a problem with selecting
some small number of frequently used combinations and putting them
out there for people to use. Some people find the distinctions a bit
tough to get around, but upper level categories are usually intuitive
to most people.
If Hendler&Berners-Lee get their wish, there will be a lot of people
out there building ontologies, and most of them won't know a
distinction from a dipswitch. But there's a chance they'll know a
process from a living being.
--
Christopher A. Welty http://www.cs.vassar.edu/faculty/welty/
Vassar College Computer Science Dept. Voice: (845) 437-5992
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0462 Fax: (845) 437-7498