ANN: Ontolog Session Dec. 7: Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontology, a presentation by Mike Bergman

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Obrst, Leo J.

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Nov 30, 2016, 11:06:15 AM11/30/16
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SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT

All are invited to a special Ontolog Forum session on Wednesday, Dec. 7, on the topic of “Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontolog” by Mike Bergman, describing the Cognonto effort. Start Time: 9:30am PST / 12:30pm Eastern / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm GMT / 1730 UTC.

See additional information below and the session page at:  http://ontologforum.org/index.php/ConferenceCall_2016_12_07

Agenda     (3)

  • Subject: Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontology     (3A)

Abstract:     (3D)

  • KBpedia is a recently announced knowledge structure that integrates six major knowledge bases (OpenCyc, Wikipedia, Wikidata, GeoNames, DBpedia, UMBEL) under the KBpedia Knowledge Ontology (KKO). KBpedia's explicit purpose is to provide a foundation for knowledge-based artificial intelligence by supporting the (nearly) automatic creation of training corpuses and positive and negative training sets and feature sets for deep, unsupervised and supervised machine learning. KKO is the upper ontology for KBpedia, and is guided by the universal categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness) of Charles S. Peirce. In this forum, one of KBpedia's co-developers, Mike Bergman, will discuss what KBpedia is, how it is organized and constructed, and why KKO offers some new approaches to vexing metaphysical questions in ontology design related to the knowledge representation of entities, relations, attributes, concepts, and natural kinds. The discussion period will hopefully highlight next potentials and important open questions.     (3E)

Conference Call Details     (4)

Date: Wednesday, 7-Dec-2016 Start Time: 9:30am PST / 12:30pm Eastern / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm GMT / 1730 UTC     (4A)

ref: World Clock     (4B)

Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours Dial-in and Screen-share (GoToMeeting): Please join the on-line meeting (screen share and voice over IP access). https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/691770629     (4C)

Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended.     (4D)

Or, call in using your telephone on one of the numbers below.     (4E)

Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting or just press #     (4Z)

GoToMeeting® Online Meetings Made Easy® Not at your computer? Click the link to join this meeting from your iPhone®, iPad®, Android® or Windows Phone® device via the GoToMeeting app.     (4AA)

[edit] In-session chat-room url: See transcript below http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/voc_20161207     (4AB)

 

 

Thanks,

Leo

_______________________________________________

Dr. Leo Obrst    Chief Scientist, Cognitive Science & Artificial Intelligence

lob...@mitre.org The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics, CCG

V: 703-983-6770  7525 Colshire Drive, M/S H317

F: 703-983-1379  McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA

 

 

Obrst, Leo J.

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Dec 5, 2016, 9:47:20 AM12/5/16
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Reminder:

Wednesday, Dec. 7, on the topic of “Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontolog” by Mike Bergman, describing the Cognonto effort. Start Time: 9:30am PST / 12:30pm Eastern / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm GMT / 1730 UTC

 

From: Obrst, Leo J.
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 11:06 AM
To: ontolo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: ANN: Ontolog Session Dec. 7: Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontology, a presentation by Mike Bergman

 

SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT

All are invited to a special Ontolog Forum session on Wednesday, Dec. 7, on the topic of “Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontolog” by Mike Bergman, describing the Cognonto effort. Start Time: 9:30am PST / 12:30pm Eastern / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm GMT / 1730 UTC.

See additional information below and the session page at:  http://ontologforum.org/index.php/ConferenceCall_2016_12_07

Agenda     (3)

·       Subject: Context, Perspective, and Generalities in a Knowledge Ontology     (3A)

·       Session Co-chair:     (3B)

o   Leo Obrst (Mitre)     (3B1)

·       Panelists / Presentations:     (3C)

o   Mike Bergman (Cognonto LLC and Structured Dynamics LLC)     (3C1)

John Bottoms

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Dec 10, 2016, 12:07:22 PM12/10/16
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All,

Zero is a curious number. It isn't really a number, but a "place holder". But what does that mean? Maybe zero is a position reserved for an additional meaning. And can that meaning include things beyond digits?

Thinking about this I've decided that there is a possibility that zero is a slot, similar to a slot in a grammar. Then this article came across my desk that touches on that idea.

     "However, according to Indian mysticism, zero is round because it signifies the circle of life,
       or as it was also known ‘the serpent of eternity’.

Maybe this is a step in the right direction. It now starts to look like the original definition of zero included any possibility. In the past I've been confused by linguists who talk about allocating a property, when they really mean "allocating a slot for a property" that is filled in at a later time. So, now I wonder, is the concept of zero, that is; beyond just the character, equivalent to <entity>?

Here is a link to the original BBC article on Zero.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161206-we-couldnt-live-without-zero-but-we-once-had-to

-John Bottoms
 Concord, MA USA

Frank Farance

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Dec 10, 2016, 1:48:05 PM12/10/16
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John-

I'm not the only mathematician who will explain that zero is the identity
element for addition of modular arithmetic, natural numbers, integers, reals,
complex, and so on. So if you want to explore that kind of zero (an identity
element), some of the basic understanding can start from there.

But zero is not the same as nothing, in the same way zero or a set containing
zero is not the same as the null set. And I am ignoring common programming
language type conversions, such as:

if ( A ) then B

which conflate (or coerce) False as A equal to zero.

But the zero you speak about fits in a family of datatypes whose Arithmetic
characteristic is True.

The article also speaks about calculus, but it's really about limits. So if
you've walked your way back from 5! (5 factorial), to 4!, 3!, 2!, 1!, and then
0!, then you've figured out that 0! is 1, and limits is about taking that idea
of walking back to zero (step by step via integers), to the limit (pun intended)
by using smaller and smaller numbers to approach the target in question. Sure,
the limit approaches zero, but the focus upon understanding limits is the
function in question, not the zero-ness of zero, e.g., the focus is upon
calculating the slope of the tangent of an infinitesimally small line segment.

What many people misunderstand about concepts like zero is that they don't exist
in isolation, i.e., they must be properly understood in the context of their
concept system that surrounds them, such as -2, -1, 1, 2. Thus, the zero of the
integers is not the same as zero of reals (but there is a mapping between the
two), and the way we know that is successor(zero) works for the zero of the
integers, but not the zero of the reals. Typical mathematics texts aren't
precise in these kinds of distinctions because they authors assume the texts
will be read by humans, and humans will make sense of any ambiguities ... just
like virtually all new mathematical notations don't explain their syntax in a
formal manner, they just give examples and expect the math student to grok the
syntax.

This kind of context dependency, such as understanding zero, is well understood
in data semantics, e.g., one cannot truly understand the marital status of
Single until one understands the value space as a whole:

MaritalStatus = { Single, Married }

versus

MaritalStatus = { Single, Married, Widowed, Divorced }

So, Yes, there might be more to understand about 0 in light of various datatypes
(implying different properties, value spaces, characterizing operations), but
that same concern would also apply to understanding 17, the most random number
between 1 and 20, and its relationship to Yellow Pigs. :-)

The idea that zero is a placeholder, doesn't seem right to me.

-FF

--
______________________________________________________________________
Frank Farance, Farance Inc. T: +1 212 486 4700 M: +1 917 751 2900
mailto:fr...@farance.com http://farance.com
Standards/Products/Services for Information/Communication Technologies

William Frank

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Dec 10, 2016, 1:59:51 PM12/10/16
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On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 12:07 PM, John Bottoms <jo...@firststarsystems.com> wrote:
All,

Zero is a curious number. It isn't really a number, but a "place holder".

'really a number' would suggest a clear meaning for the term 'number'.  There are by now, after several centuries of people thinking about the foundations of mathematics, several different more precise meanings for the concept,all related to each other. 

For example, the two simplest concepts are the cardinal, or counting, numbers.  Where the number is the answer to the question 'how many?'  How many apples are in the bowl?    There is one,  there are none, ...   The 'meaning of zero, in this use, is not the least mysterious.    Then, there are the ordinanal numbers, used to place things in an order, who is the first in line, who is the second, etc.   Zero is not an ordinal number, although in many cases it is clearner to create a sequence starting with zero.    

Then, there are the 'natural numbers', that represent a conceptual scheme of entities using the sucessor function, equals, zero, and the axiom of mathematical induction.   Zero is the one of these natural numbers with a singuarity, in that it has no sucessor, and it plays a special role in the induction axiom.  

Then, there is the digit, or positional, zero, representing one of the ordered set of numerals in a positional number naming system.   

Of course, the symbol '0', while nice, is only one way of representing the same concept does 'zero', a byte containing 8 off bits, ṣifr in Arabic, and śūnya in Sanskrit, and an empty space in the positional chinese counting rods system.   

I can't imagine the cognitive content of a *speculation* about the 'meaning' of zero, as in 'maybe zero is this or that', rather than considering the various ways people **use** the members of this related family of concepts.   I believe that people who have participated in this chain of thought, began to recognize, mabye a few centuriies ago, and definitely since Wittgenstein, after fruitless millenian, that looking for an 'essence' of the meaning of a concept,such as zero, was in its own very essense, fruitless. 

I also think that whenever one is tempted to use the word 'really' about something like 'really a number', or 'really an walrus, or an American, ...', that one should be suspicious of oneself, and equally suspicious when they hear others say 'really'.  'Really' often hides a multitude of realities.
 

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Christopher Menzel

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Dec 10, 2016, 2:12:24 PM12/10/16
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On 10 Dec 2016, at 12:07 PM, John Bottoms <jo...@firststarsystems.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> Zero is a curious number. It isn't really a number, but a "place holder".

No, it is not a "place holder". It is a cardinal number as clearly and robustly as any other. Like cardinal numbers generally, it measures the size of classes/concepts and can be the semantic value of definite descriptions of the form "the number of Cs", e.g., the (current) number of women senators from Texas, the number of US president-elects fit for office, the number of primes between 19 and 23, etc.

-chris

Christopher Menzel

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Dec 10, 2016, 2:30:58 PM12/10/16
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I didn't see William Frank's better, more complete answer before replying, on which I make a couple of very minor comments below.

On 10 Dec 2016, at 1:59 PM, William Frank <william...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 12:07 PM, John Bottoms <jo...@firststarsystems.com> wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> Zero is a curious number. It isn't really a number, but a "place holder".
>
> 'really a number' would suggest a clear meaning for the term 'number'. There are by now, after several centuries of people thinking about the foundations of mathematics, several different more precise meanings for the concept,all related to each other.
>
> For example, the two simplest concepts are the cardinal, or counting, numbers. Where the number is the answer to the question 'how many?' How many apples are in the bowl? There is one, there are none, ... The 'meaning of zero, in this use, is not the least mysterious. Then, there are the ordinal numbers, used to place things in an order, who is the first in line, who is the second, etc. Zero is not an ordinal number, although in many cases it is clearner to create a sequence starting with zero.

Well, yeah, but really all that's happening in those cases is that "zero" is marking the *first* element in a specific well-ordered sequence (e.g., the von Neumann ordinals). Structurally speaking, it doesn't make much sense to talk about an ordinal number zero, as there is no "zero'th" element in a well-ordered sequence.

> Then, there are the 'natural numbers', that represent a conceptual scheme of entities using the sucessor function, equals, zero, and the axiom of mathematical induction. Zero is the one of these natural numbers with a singuarity, in that it has no sucessor, and it plays a special role in the induction axiom.

You can formulate an induction schema for just the positive integers by starting with 1 (or more generally, for the natural numbers ≥n for any n). Indeed, Peano himself formulated induction with 1 as the first number. Clearly, though, you'll need to start with 0 if you want a modern algebraic representation of arithmetic, as you'll need the additive identity.

-chris

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