Where to start (was: Ontology for Dummies)

[Sean Bechhofer]

On Fri, 4 Oct 2002, Bernard Vatant wrote:

> *Sean
> > If this discussion is proving uninteresting or irrelevant to the mailing
> > list, please let us know and we can take it elsewhere....
>
> Assuming that Tony's answer to that is representative, let's keep on for a while :)
>
> *SB
> > I suppose the issue here is that I think that inference is crucial if
> > we're going to get added value from machine processing (and really have a
> > *Semantic* web).
>
> Agreed. I guess no one will argue on that. But OTOH I guess users (astronomers)
> want also added value in the human-machine interface also. And, the way I figure it, OWL
> would be good for the machine processing added value, but TM would be good for the
> human-machine interface added value. That goes along the lines of what Carol wrote in a
> previous post that we should not look as those technologies as concurrents, looking for
> the "killer app", but audit what each of them could bring, and eventually put the pieces
> where they fit. The tricky thing is to figure how to make them work together ...

Absolutely. I would never claim that any single technology will solve all
our problems! As you say, we need nice things for users to look
at/interact with and well-defined formal things for machines to work with
along with a seamless integration between the two :-)) I guess this kind
of discussion helps to inform us of the boundaries of the constituent
parts.

> *BV
> > > Is there less semantics in the TM expression than in the OWL expression?
> > > Let alone the capacity of the latter to draw inferences ...
>
> That was not begging the answer, but a reallly naive question :)
>
> *SB
> > I'm afraid I don't quite follow this, and don't see where the semantics
> > are here.
>
> Oh, you mean by semantics here the machine-interpretability, right?

Oh yes. In this context when I talk about semantics I (pretty much)
*always* mean machine-intepretability. That's what (in my opinion) the
"semantics" in the Semantic Web is all about.

	Sean

-- 
Sean Bechhofer
seanb at cs.man.ac.uk
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~seanb