my followup to yesterday's discussion of ICE and mysticism

[Jonathan Rees]

Too long for email, so I put my thoughts on a wiki page:

http://code.google.com/p/information-artifact-ontology/wiki/JAR_ICE_notes

This captures my latest crackpot theory of information, concocted on
the airplane last Saturday, combined with thoughts resulting from the
discussion on the call.

Jonathan

[Barry Smith]

I think this is an interesting post, and the remarks on independent
origin of GDCs address an important issue which will need some deep thought.
However, I think there is a general worry with the approach
described, which is that, in order to build up a coherent ontological
representation of (say) the ICE-involving phenomena described by
evolutionary biology, we are going to need some at least of the
simple terms (like 'denote' or 'about') with which to start. Trying
to do otherwise would be a bit like trying to understand a simple
exchange between a buy and seller by first developing a theory of the
entire history of the material forces of production in its
development from hunter-gatherer societies through feudalism to
capitalism, and so on.
The general rule is that you can't understand the logically simple in
terms of the logically complex.
Another general rule is: ontology should be boring, and Jonathan is
here trying to make it exciting.
BS

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[Jonathan Rees]

Your message speaks to the question I asked throughout the call: Is
IAO meant to address only use cases where denotation and meaning are
clear, such as measurements, lot numbers, and formal protocol
specifications, or does its scope include use cases where the
important thing is to document and analyze important
information-related confusions, such as Linnaean taxonomy,
bibliography, copyright law, and "web semantics"? You've got to make
a choice. If the former, using a primitive fetishistic 'denotation'
relation is fine, since you're unlikely to make mistakes. If the
latter, you've got to either select or invent a non-boring solution to
a major problem in 20th century philosophy.

I hear you and Alan giving opposite answers to this question. If you
prevail, I will take my concerns elsewhere (such as tdwg-tag and
www-tag) and not bother this list, which is pretty much what I had
planned to do before getting encouragement. People have real work to
do and that work shouldn't necessarily be held hostage to the problems
I care about. If Alan prevails, I'm happy to disrupt the IAO process
as much as anyone will let me.

Jonathan

[Barry Smith]

I think there is closer alignment between Alan and myself than you suggest.
My view is that we can deal with the hard cases only if we get the
easy cases clear first. I am also a strong advocate of the principle
of low hanging fruit.
I do not believe that we will deal with ALL the hard cases, precisely
because of the major philosophical problem(s) you mention below.
However, Werner Ceusters are making progress with SOME of the hard
cases, and we will be reporting on this soon.
BS

[Chris Mungall]

What's an example of an ICE-involving phenomena described by
evolutionary biology?

[Pat Hayes]

On Nov 18, 2009, at 9:41 AM, Jonathan Rees wrote:

> Your message speaks to the question I asked throughout the call: Is
> IAO meant to address only use cases where denotation and meaning are
> clear, such as measurements, lot numbers, and formal protocol
> specifications, or does its scope include use cases where the
> important thing is to document and analyze important
> information-related confusions, such as Linnaean taxonomy,
> bibliography, copyright law, and "web semantics"? You've got to make
> a choice. If the former, using a primitive fetishistic 'denotation'
> relation is fine, since you're unlikely to make mistakes. If the
> latter, you've got to either select or invent a non-boring solution to
> a major problem in 20th century philosophy.

Sounds like we should try to do both. Then when the fun one fails, we
have the boring one to show people who wonder why we are having so
much fun.

Pat

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