Re: [topicmaps-comment] mergeMap Pointing to More Than OnetopicMapElement

[Leonid Ototsky <leo@mgn.ru>]

Bernard ,
You wrote:

<<
1. Topic Maps standard *do not* support any specific ontology, be it
"upper", "generic",
"specific" or otherwise, except the very generic concepts that are in the
standard itself,
which are very few. And in fact, the standard is thought to be as
ontology-neutral as
possible, and even to give tools to make coexist, compare or map different
or even
conflicting ontologies.
>>
Suppose it will be helpful for the Topic Maps community to be
"ontology-neutral" to look at "cognitology" direction . Some comments are in
my paper "To keep abreast of the 21st century". I have put an English
version on the http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it
site under the "For CIO" item.

Regards,
Leonid
============================================
Leonid Ototsky - http://ototsky.mgn.ru
Chief Specialist of the Computer Center
Magnitogorsk Iron&Steel Works - http://www.mmk.ru
Russia
============================================

Rex

I think there are a few confusions in your below message.

1. Topic Maps standard *do not* support any specific ontology, be it
"upper", "generic",
"specific" or otherwise, except the very generic concepts that are in the
standard itself,
which are very few. And in fact, the standard is thought to be as
ontology-neutral as
possible, and even to give tools to make coexist, compare or map different
or even
conflicting ontologies.

2. It happens that Murray has worked with the Cyc ontology. But he's worked
with many
things, IMO just to test the standard and create use cases. He can speak for
himself
anyway :) That does not mean there is any kind of involvment or support of
Topic Maps
towards Cyc. Topic Maps could as well support Aristote's categories or
Incas' or
Babylonian cosmology.

3. I think most people in Topic Maps community at large - at least I can
speak for myself,
but I think it applies really to most if not all TM freaks I know - are
frightened by the
very notion of anything like "universal" or "upper" ontology. Maybe they
have a natural
trend for that, and thinking with Topic Maps just make things worse :))

BTW I can't figure what your concern with DAML-OIL and Cyc really is, but in
any case I
don't feel it has something to do with this thread merging issues. Unless I
miss
completely your point?

Bernard

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Bernard Vatant
Consultant - Mondeca
www.mondeca.com
Chair - OASIS TM PubSubj Technical Committee
www.oasis-open.org/committees/tm-pubsubj/
-------------------------------------------------------------------

----- Message d'origine -----
De : "Rex Brooks" <rexb@starbourne.com>
À : "Murray Altheim" <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>; "Lars Marius Garshol"
<larsga@garshol.priv.no>
Cc : <topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org>
Envoyé : vendredi 21 juin 2002 14:32
Objet : Re: [topicmaps-comment] mergeMap Pointing to More Than One topicMap
Element


> Gentlebeings,
>
> I follow your list, but because of my involvement with HumanMarkup
> and Web Services, I don't often have much of anything to say wrt your
> work, but this thread raises a couple of issues for both Web Services
> and HumanMarkup, with more concern wrt HumanMarkup. My concern is
> that I have already recommended that HumanMarkup adopt and adapt the
> DAML-OIL ontologies. We have to harmonize our vocabulary with many
> others, but especially with TopicMaps in general and PubSub in
> particular. We haven't voted yet to adopt that set of upper
> ontologies, and I don't know if there are any significant conflicts
> or discrepancies between DAML-OIL and Cyc, which, (correct me if I'm
> wrong) you tend to favor.  However, regardless of that, which we can
> adapt to, allowing through the specification for known ambiguities in
> allowable practices for merging maps could cause us some headaches
> since we expect to recommend TopicMaps as the primary
> lookup/association reference for HumanMarkup-based applications to
> use.
>
> To boil it down to the two concerns, is there a clear reason to
> prefer an upper ontology, and is there a significant vulnerability
> through the mergemap ambiguity for proliferation of non-specific
> associations in a returned map that includes merged maps?
>
> I really just want to know if I need to listen in on your list more
> carefully. Your work is very important to us. I wish I could clone
> myself, but I can't so I have spend my time as wisely as I can to
> keep up with the more important work that bears on the efforts in
> which I actively participate.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Ciao,
> Rex
>
> At 11:53 AM +0100 6/21/02, Murray Altheim wrote:
> >Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
> >
> >>[...]
> >>| Although allowing several <topicMap> elements as children in a
> >>| larger DTD seems quite a weird concept to me ... but weird DTDs do
> >>| exist :))
> >>
> >>I think there might be legitimate reasons for doing such things, and
> >>it would in any case be poor specification design if we disallowed
> >>something we weren't absolutely sure would be an error.
> >
> >
> >I disagree. XTM was designed as an interchange language, not a
> >catch-all for all possible "legitimate" topic map expressions.
> >Since there is a simple solution for this within the current
> >specification, I don't see that opening up the specification
> >merely because there *may* be reasons to express something in
> >an alternative (and potentially more problematic) way would be
> >a benefit for anyone.
> >
> >It would be poor specification design to allow anything anyone
> >can think of merely because they can think of it. It's the
> >nature of specification to provide reasonable constraints, and
> >XTM as an interchange format has such reasonable constraints. I
> >don't want to have to write processors to pull XTM content out
> >of ambiguously-marked up XML. What a mess!
> >
> >Murray
> >
> >.......................................................................
> >Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
> >Knowledge Media Institute
> >The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK
> >
> >      In the evening
> >      The rice leaves in the garden
> >      Rustle in the autumn wind
> >      That blows through my reed hut.  -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu
> >
> >
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>
> --
>
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