Re: SUO: -- Technical Methodology
John --
My proposal to make "spatialLocation" be by default
required for 3D Events does not deny users the possibility
of making it an "optional" relation. It only moves the
action that a user needs to take to decide which option
s/he wants from changing the hierarchy of the ontology to
changing a required/optional switch on the relation.
All options are available in either case. Nothing is
lost. The concepts are there, the choices are clear.
Our "Newspeak" dictionary has the "Oldspeak" in there,
marked as "Colloquial" or "Slang" or "Archaic". ;-)
The problem in this case is computational complexity,
i.e. having **more** concepts than one needs. This cannot
be resolved by adding in more concepts.
The question as I see it is, how many users will have
to make changes to get the ontology they want? It
depends on how many prefer "required" and how many prefer
"optional"? If a choice does not create other problems
then the default can be whatever the majority
wants -- I'm easy. But in the case at hand, I think
that leaving a spatial location of event as optional
will make an accurate translation of 3D Event to
4D Activity impossible. This is a problem. Resolving
it by having the relation necessary and allowing users
to change it to optional seems to be the least troublesome
option for the user community as a whole.
But we have to know what the majority want. A simple
poll will suffice.
Pat
===================
John F. Sowa wrote:
>
> Erik and Pat,
>
> Yes, I am serious about making progress:
>
> EL> The fact that there is resistant to this kind of thing
> > is baffling, particulary with the case of John Sowa, who
> > has been such a stalwart contributor for so long it hardly
> > seems plausible that he isn't serious about progress.
> > What's the problem?
>
> The problem is finding a method that will avoid George Orwell's
> Newspeak in the book 1984. (See quotations below.)
>
> We can have a single ontology that can accommodate everybody
> in the same way that an unabridged dictionary can accommodate
> everybody's word usage. There are two alternatives:
>
> 1. Put everything in it and rename those alternatives that
> are mutually exclusive.
>
> 2. Develop a modular framework that can accommodate mutually
> exclusive alternatives.
>
> There is plenty of work to do in developing such a standard.
> For the alternative of "abridging" the dictionary based on
> somebody's desire to eliminate options, see below.
>
> John
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> Quotations from http://www.gerenser.com/1984/quote.html
>
> "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of
> thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050,
> at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could
> understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate
> of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we
> understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think.
> Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." —Syme, pg 46-47
>
> "In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost
> ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science.' The
> empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of
> the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of
> Ingsoc." —pg 159
>
> Even more frightening is the poll on the previous page:
>
> http://www.gerenser.com/1984/
>
> "Do you believe our society may one day be like the world depicted
> in 1984?"
>
> 55% of the respondents said "Very possible", 16% said "Not sure",
> and 28% said absolutely not.
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
=============================================
Patrick Cassidy
MICRA, Inc. || (908) 561-3416
735 Belvidere Ave. || (908) 668-5252 (if no answer)
Plainfield, NJ 07062-2054 || (908) 668-5904 (fax)
internet: cassidy@micra.com
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