[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Roger Costello: My Version of "Why use OWL?"
Hello Walter, As always, it is a great pleasure to hear from you. I am not sure that I completely understand your points, so if I may, I would like to lay out in greater detail the notion that I was trying to make in my document. That way we can concretely examine where we may agree or disagree. The scenario that I took in my paper was this: Suppose that an application is looking for Camera information, and it encounters this XML document: <SLR> ... </SLR> Let us consider the steps the application takes to process the XML document: (1) Parse the XML document (this is a syntax issue). (2) Determine the relationship between "SLR" and "Camera" (this is a semantic issue). Somewhere the following relationship must be made known: (2.1) "SLR" is a type of "Camera". Once this information is made know to the application it can do the next (action) step: (3) If the XML document contains Camera info then do ... Else do ... The point that I was trying to make in my paper was: Should the semantic definition (2.1) be: (a) hardcoded and buried within each application, or, should it be: (b) declaratively stated in a separate document, using a standard, well-defined vocabulary (i.e., OWL). I argued for the later, (b). (I realize that I have not "objectively" stated the alternatives, for which I apologize. However, that is how I truly see the alternatives.) Walter, what are your thoughts? /Roger "W. E. Perry" wrote: > > [Last week Roger Costello initiated a discussion of OWL and OWL > ontologies both here on XML-DEV and also on the RDF-interest list. This > week he has posted a follow up to RDF-interest but not here on XML-DEV. > Without wishing to cross-post, I believe that the topic remains of as > much interest here as on RDF-interest and I am therefore initiating a > new thread based on my response to Roger on the RDF-interest list.] > > "Roger L. Costello" wrote: > > > Hi Folks, > > > > I have created a few slides to describe, at a high level, the > > motivation for using OWL: > > > > http://www.xfront.com/owl/motivation/sld001.htm > > > > Comments welcome. /Roger > > Hi Roger. > > My very different take on the role of semantics in a universal > internetwork of complementary and interdependent processes: > > We can agree entirely on the headline of your slides #7 and #8: > "Meaning (semantics) applied on a per-application basis". This is > precisely how semantics are elaborated: as the outcome of specific > expertise applied through process. It is, however, in the nature of > expertise to be idiosyncratic. The most valuable semantics for a given > purpose are elaborated from the application of the most specific > expertise. Therefore the 'problem' which you would highlight in your > slide #9 ('problems with burying the semantic definitions within each > application') is in fact an inherent property of expert processes. In > order to apply expertise, processes must comprehend a specific expert > semantics of the data upon which they operate and the nature of their > manipulation of that data. In your slide #9 you quite correctly factor > an application of expert process into code to interpret the data and > code to process the data. That 'interpretation' of the data is a > specific instantiation of the particular semantically-freighted > datastructure upon which a given expert process expects to operate. The > 'code to process the data' has to be designed for a particular > instantiation of the data. The more particular the expertise of that > process, the more particular and idiosyncratic--and less the common > denominator of a standard semantic vocabulary--must be the instantiation > of, and therefore the semantics implied by, the data upon which that > process operates. > > Your example on slide #9 of the Mars probe disaster--one application > interpreted the data in inches, another application interpreted the data > in centimeters--is actually a counterexample to what you hope to > illustrate. The cause of the disaster was that different applications > expected to share *common* semantics: that the data as given was, for > the purposes of *both* applications, in inches or in centimeters. The > devastating error was that each application deferred from its own > expertise to a presumed agreement or 'semantics in common' about which > *both* applications were fatally mistaken. It does not matter which > application happened to guess or blithely presume correctly about the > units of the data as presented. It was an unconscionable abdication of > the expertise of both applications to make any such presumption. As you > correctly illustrate on your slide #9, there are two necessary > components to an expert application, and the first of them is code to > interpret the data. Part of the application's own expertise is knowledge > of the units in which it expects to operate, and therefore it is crucial > for the application to instantiate data in those units for its own > purposes. And, in turn, crucial to doing that is first recognizing the > units intended or implied in data as received, in order to elect the > correct expertise for instantiating data in the units required. The > usual clues for such recognition or syntactic, which is why I can say > that in your example you have inferred the line between syntax and > semantics in the wrong place. An easy case would be if the units were > explicitly presented in syntax, as with e.g. an inches attribute or a > units element. Occasionally it is in fact as simple as that, and the > application can, through its expert interpretation code, readily resolve > the units presented syntactically into those required semantically. In > other cases, the application must look at the provenance or structure of > the data as received and compare it with either or both in previous > examples that it has encountered in order to make an expert > interpretation of the data received. The point is that it is always > incumbent on the application by virtue of its presumed expertise to make > its independent interpretation of the data received in order to make an > informed instantiation of the data required. To defer in that necessary > task of expert processing to some presumed common semantics is to > abdicate expertise itself, and the predictable outcome is error. > > Perhaps we should consider a different example. Suppose that an instance > of your SLR is presented to an application for customs duty collection. > The task of that application is not to infer that an SLR is a sort of > camera but to infer that the particular instance presented is an example > of dutiable luxury consumer goods. This application is a valuable use of > the SLR/camera ontology which you are creating, but probably not one > which you expected, nor one which you have provided 'hooks' for in the > ontology you are building. Yet our larger purpose here is to build (and > more abstractly to build the principles for) ontologies distributed > among processing nodes on a worldwide internetwork. In that effort, > harnessing the unique perspective and uniquely expert processing at each > node is the particular value we hope to add by building out the ontology > to worldwide scale. Clearly the customs application cannot function > without its own ontological distinctions between dutiable and > non-dutiable, consumer and industrial goods. Equally clearly we do not > want to burden every camera hobbyist's SLR ontology with the > distinctions which are most crucial to the customs agent. The only > workable way to reconcile those goals, and the only way to build out any > non-trivial ontology to worldwide scale, is to require as a matter of > design that semantics are locally elaborated to fill the local needs of > expert processes. Being local means that these semantics are not shared, > nor understood in some common way. While it is entirely possible that > congruent semantics might be elaborated in separate locations by locally > appropriate processes, the point is not the similarity of the semantics > but the idiosyncrasy of the processes which elaborate them. > > Respectfully, > > Walter Perry > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an > initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription > manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl>
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