Vocabulary: Ontology

[Rob Seaman]

Rick wrote:

> I think the main point is that it doesn't really matter what format  
> we use, as long as 1) VOcabulary remains primarily a token list, 2)  
> thus remains "easy" to process with "standard" tools, and 3) we all  
> adopt it as the main (only?) standard in our daily VO-operations  
> (the latter is the whole point of this frustrating exercise).  If  
> someone needs a copy in OWL or Excel or CSV or cunieform, then  
> there will always be simple means for translating a token list,  
> with or without some ontological baggage.

The W3C tells us that "The RDF specifications provide a lightweight  
ontology system to support the exchange of knowledge on the Web."   
Bafflement has been expressed at why RDF - and presumably ontologies  
in general - have yet to catch on in the VO.  I think it may be  
baggage like the following that demands ones attention when googling  
around for ontological info:

>> Objective Pretensions and Metaphysical Baggage:
>> A Defense of Normative Descriptivism
>> Can we accommodate normative truth and fact sans ontological  
>> baggage?  In this paper I explore whether expressivism or  
>> constructivism can capture the objective pretensions of normative  
>> reason claims in ethics and epistemology.  I argue that they  
>> cannot.  Expressivists fails because reason claims are thought to  
>> be assessable by stance-independent semantic standards.  Depending  
>> on the version, constructivism fails because it either does not  
>> offer a stance-independent semantic standard of assessment, or  
>> because it cannot capture the normative authority of reason  
>> claims.  In the end, we cannot accommodate objective pretensions  
>> without descriptive semantics, and that brings with it ontological  
>> baggage.

(From http://www.u.arizona.edu/~mbedke/Bedke_Online_Papers.htm.  As  
Mr. Bedke helpfully explains,  "I am currently interested in  
normativity that is reason-implicating, so I tend to look at  
normative reasons in both epistemology and value theory.")

I suspect that this actually means something - but what the heck does  
it have to do with the VO?  Among other things, the VO is a really  
interesting discussion between computer scientists and  
astrophysicists (and those who seek to bridge the divide).  The  
biggest distinction between the VO and similar efforts in  
bioinformatics, for instance, is a budget that is a couple orders of  
magnitude smaller.  That smaller budget translates to increased  
skepticism.  Why should we invest in A, rather than B?  It isn't that  
we aren't willing - even eager - to be convinced, rather, it's just  
that the case has yet to be made in the right way to the right  
audience.  To date there is a significant impedance mismatch between  
ontologies and astronomy.

I might also say that astronomers themselves have a lot of experience  
overcoming conceptual hurdles.  Eddington worked out that gravity  
can't explain the energy source of stars.  Just when this is resolved  
via fusion (and the holy grail of the alchemists, the transmutation  
of the elements), someone wonders what happens when the fuel runs  
out.  The discovery of white dwarfs led to neutron stars led to black  
holes - gravity finally wins after all - and Alice falls down the  
hole.  I'm no Carl Sagan - but even without benefit of an ontology, I  
can string three sentences together and give a capsule biography of  
the stars from birth to death.

It is ironic that computer scientists searching for a term indicating  
a "data model that represents a set of concepts within a domain and  
the relationships between those concepts" chose a word heaped with  
metaphysical pretensions.

"Black hole".  People - laymen - don't even know what it is - but  
they know what it is.  Why is it again that ontologies aren't taking  
the VO by storm?

- Rob

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