SUO: Re: An article on the pitfalls of metadata
Dear Matthew,
My major point is that the work on ontology is or
should be one of discovery:
> I think my take on what you are saying here is the question of
> invention vs discovery. I have certainly always thought we were
> engaged in an exercise of discovery.
The contrast is not between invention and discovery
(since invention is itself a kind of discovery).
The greatest threat to discovery is *legislation*,
in which some authority or wannabe authority legislates
something that everybody else is forced to swallow.
That is my primary objection to Cyc, Sumo, and Dolce.
They have been developed by wannabe legislators who
claim that they are qualified to tell everybody else
how they should organize their ways of thinking.
What I have been emphasizing all along is that the
top levels (and every level beneath them) should be
discovered rather than legislated.
John Sowa