Re: Converses (Re: Availability of the ANSI standard proposal?)
brayman@zuben.ca.boeing.com (Bill Brayman)
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 11:13:16 -0800
From: brayman@zuben.ca.boeing.com (Bill Brayman)
Message-id: <9603261913.AA11090@primus.ca.boeing.com>
To: cg@cs.umn.edu
Subject: Re: Converses (Re: Availability of the ANSI standard proposal?)
Cc: goolsbey@cyc.com, interlingua@isi.edu, murray@cyc.com, srkb@cs.umbc.edu
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>I agree with Fritz that at a fundamental level there is only one relation,
>i.e., that converse(s) should not be represented. However, at a more
>"user-friendly" level, they seem to be needed, e.g., it is convenient
>to represent both of the notions "parents-of" and "children-of". Although
>it is tempting to say that this is an "interface problem" that should be
>dealt with outside of the KR system, our experience predicts that users
In the database world, this issue concerns what are called "views". It is assumed that data is stored in some cannonical form and materialized in various ways depending on it use.
So what ontological engineers/scientists are trying to do is reverse engineer real life views to find the ultimate canonical form that will support all views.
What Fritz only hinted at is the ontological work that still has to be done to represent views. It vaguely reminds me of Robin Lakoff's (or someone's) observation that kids learn about dogs and cats first and only much later about taxonomies and felines and other more canonical forms. So, what cyc and other systems have to do is be able to make statements about dogs and cats even tho they may be built upon notions of taxonomies and felines and canines.
Bill