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Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information
Technology International Limited
Shell
Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20
7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796
336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Larson [mailto:elarson_78746@yahoo.com]
Sent: 17 June 2003 03:01
To: John F. Sowa; Patrick Cassidy; 'Standard-Upper-Ontology '
Subject: Re: SUO: On the subject of taking votesJohn,The issue I raised initially wasn't about technical differences of opinion, but philosophical ones. For instance the endurantist vs. perdurantist debate. In this kind of case, you don't get consensus. You've pointed out the agelessness of such issues many times before. So the options are to keep merry-go-rounding, or to decide based on some criteria that reflects the "consensus" view.MW: The reason for embrassing both is precisely so that you don't need to go round and round in circles. Another good reason is that in different circumstances one may be more appropriate than another.The other option is of course the idea of including everything in the ontological stew: 3D, 4D events and so on (Question: who decides if philosophically ideosyncratic positions get modules? What if, God forbid, there's a Berkeleyian among us, who thinks nothing exists but thoughts?).MW: Even I think that we only need to include viewpoints that have a significant constituency - that would be more than one at any rate.Note that a lot of foundational concepts are incompatible--in the 3D vs. 4D case, they have radically different committments to 'change'. So they aren't candidates for subtypes of some other type of event--they reflect basic differences in worldviews about the nature of events themselves.MW: If you wish you can create concepts that are simply the union of the 3D and 4D equivalents - where they exist. I think that then mapping is more important though.What you have then is a bunch of interpretations of 'event' relative to some community of interest. In the worse case, you've got N concepts for N communities of practice.MW: And what othe outcome is possible? Whatever we come up with will be the (one or more) interpretation of "event".The ontology no longer reflects the world, it is actually a catalogue of personal psychology.MW: I think that experience and analysis is more hopeful.Perhaps that has some sociological significance, I don't know. But I think the thing to do is to try and pick the basic concepts in features of the world that further the aim of enhancing some agreed on function, such as system interoperability. This makes the concepts relative not to everyone's philosophical theories, but to some particular functional end. In this case, perhaps it's empirically establishable which notion of event is best for subsuming the other more domain specific events that the SUO was intended to faciliate. What the hell the best choice of event is for furthering system interoperability or other computation! al functions is beyond my ken. But that's a constructive way to look at building an SUO I think. More constructive anyway.MW: I will agree that testing any result against particular cases is essential for achieveing quality (fit for purpose).Erik
"John F. Sowa" <sowa@bestweb.net> wrote:
Pat,
I very much agree with Bob and Matthew about taking votes
in standards committees. Their primary value is in deciding
procedural issues, not technical issues.
And if there truly are technical issues on which the group is
seriously divided, then that means that existing information
on that topic is insufficient for making *any* decision.
To force a decision by a vote is worse than useless.
Re face-to-face meetings: I agree that they are valuable
for establishing personal relationships and smoothing over
misunderstandings. But since we lack that luxury, we'll have
to manage without them.
John
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