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RE: A Light Rant On Ontological Commitment

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: Bill dehOra <BdehOra@i...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 12:05:40 -0600

One problem is that the *intent* of language is 
determined in the context of the culture from 
which it emerges and within which semantics 
evolve.  A relationship of language to culture 
(domain to environment) is a reciprocal 
control over the evolution of the thing(s) 
described. We must know both what is *meant* 
(the semantic measure within the system) 
and the *intent* (the semantic measure of 
the sender to receiver).  This becomes very expensive.  
The punt is to measure behaviors. If the receiver 
reacts as the sender expects, we can say the communication 
succeeded and dispense with the *meaningful* 
tests.  It means what we make it mean. 

Multi-lingual and muli-cultural are reciprocal  
issues.  We are typically better served as 
you point out by dealing with the transaction/contract 
level where we can make constraints testable 
and predictable based on observable behaviors.  

The ontological commitment cuts both ways:  
responsibility for successes 
and failures.  Smart users measure the boundary 
effects.  They pay particular attention to 
the boundaries of time (contract time) and interface 
or protocol.  They provide measures based 
on the content type (event type determines 
expected range of behavior).  

An ontology is just a document.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Bill dehOra [mailto:BdehOra@i...]

Ontology merging is similar
(you're dealing with terms mainly): it'll work up to a point though (I think
transaction and contract ontologies can be merged in general). But even
creating one ontology is hard work.

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