RE: Draft Proposed ISO Standard for Common Logic
Dear John,
I read the draft standard with interest.
I notice it is a relatively early draft, at least it does not
conform very closely yet to ISO documentation standards.
My main comment at this stage is that I suggest that a meta-model
of the language is included (it would accompany and illustrate
the definition of the Abstract Syntax).
There are two reasons for this:
1. It would act as a quality check on the Abstract Syntax.
2. It would provide the logical design for the database for
tools to support the standard.
Oh, I would be happy to develop such a meta-model for the team.
I already have one for a previous draft :-)
Regards
Matthew R. West
Reference Data Architecture and Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Web: http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> [mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG]On Behalf Of
> John F. Sowa
> Sent: 02 May 2005 20:25
> To: cg@cs.uah.edu; standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: Draft Proposed ISO Standard for Common Logic
>
>
> A draft of the proposed Common Logic standard was presented at the
> ISO SC32 meeting in Berlin in April:
>
>
> http://philebus.tamu.edu/cl/docs/cl/32N1238-WD24707-CommonLogic.pdf
>
> Harry Delugach, who is the official editor of the document, presented
> the following slides about Common Logic at the Open Forum on Metadata,
> which was collocated with the ISO meeting in Berlin:
>
> http://philebus.tamu.edu/cl/docs/cl/Berlin_OpenForum_Delugach.pdf
>
> One point that is not mentioned in WD 24707 or in Harry's slides is
> that we have started to call the default notation used in the document
> CLIF (Common Logic Interchange Format). CGIF (Conceptual Graph
> Interchange Format) will be 100% compatible with CLIF, and the syntax
> of CGIF and its mapping to and from CLIF will also be standardized
> in the document. This document is still in development, and many of
> the sections will be revised, often extensively, in the next
> few months.
> The model theory and the first-order syntax are firm, but there may be
> some extensions. A final (we hope) version will appear in April 2006,
> and a close-to-final version should appear in 3Q05.
>
> There is an old version of a draft CG standard on my web site, which
> will be replaced by this new document. However, I intend to combine
> much of the old material and quite a bit of new material in a tutorial
> on CGs, which will discuss how to map all (or at least most) of the
> current CG techniques to and from the standard.
>
> The tutorial will add some features to CGIF that go beyond
> the standard,
> such as actors. Whether or not those features get into the standard is
> an issue that will be discussed on CG list. My intention is to define
> actors formally as a notation for functional conceptual relations and
> to include them in the standard with that definition. Any features
> that go beyond purely functional forms (e.g., side effects) will not
> be in the standard.
>
> Following are a few excerpts from ISO WD 24707 on Common Logic.
>
> John Sowa
> ______________________________________________________________
> _________
>
> Introduction, page 7:
>
> Common Logic is a logic framework intended for information
> exchange and
> transmission. The framework allows for a variety of different
> syntactic
> forms, called dialects, all expressible within a common XML-based
> syntax and all sharing a single semantics.
>
> Common Logic has some novel features, chief among them being a syntax
> which is signature-free and permits 'higher-order' constructions such
> as quantification over Common Logic classes or relations while
> preserving a first-order model theory, and a semantics which allows
> theories to describe intensional entities such as Common Logic classes
> or properties. It also fixes the meanings of a few conventions in
> widespread use, such as numerals to denote integers and quotation
> marks to denote character strings, and has provision for the use
> of datatypes and for naming, importing and transmitting content on
> the World Wide Web using XML.
>
> Scope, p. 9
>
> This standard specifies a family of languages designed for use in the
> representation and interchange of knowledge among disparate computer
> systems.
>
> The following features are essential to the design of this standard
>
> • The language has declarative semantics. It is possible to
> understand the meaning of expressions in the language without
> appeal to an interpreter for manipulating those expressions.
>
> • The language is logically comprehensive—at its most general,
> it provides for the expression of arbitrary logical sentences.
>
> The following are within the scope of this standard:
>
> • interchange of knowledge among heterogeneous computer systems
>
> • representation of knowledge in ontologies and knowledge bases;
>
> • specification of expressions that are the input or output of
> inference engines.
>
> The following are outside the scope of this standard:
>
> • the specification of proof theory or inference rules;
>
> • specification of translators between the notations of
> heterogeneous
> computer systems.
>
> • free logics
>
> • conditional logics
>
> • methods of providing relationships between symbols in
> the logical
> “universe” and individuals in the “real world”.
>
> This document describes Common Logic’s syntax and semantics.
>
> The standard defines an abstract syntax and an associated model-
> theoretic semantics for a specific extension of first-order logic.
> The intent is that the content of any system using first-order logic
> can be represented in the standard. The purpose is to facilitate
> interchange of first-order logic-based knowledge and information
> between systems.
>
> Issues relating to computability using the standard (including
> efficiency, optimization, etc.) are not addressed.
>
>