Marcus, What I noticed in your replies to Frank was that you kept coming back with the additional levels of distinctions that a careful application of categories to physical things must encounter. Do you have a method of doing that, or is that part of the method of the Cyc data format somehow?
My method of identifying emerging complex systems is really the rock bed I always return to, observing when and where the continuity of change (flow) in time series data begins and ends. Do you have a series of questions you ask to dig up the structural variety in a physical situation? Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marcus G. Daniels > Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 9:33 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Can you guess the source. > > > Phil Henshaw wrote: > > I'll have to try OpenCyc to have any clear idea what it's > for. What's > > the productive question it asks? > > > >From http://www.cyc.com/cyc/technology/whatiscyc_dir/whatsincyc > > The Cyc knowledge base (KB) is a formalized representation of a vast > quantity of fundamental human knowledge: facts, rules of thumb, and > heuristics for reasoning about the objects and events of > everyday life. > The medium of representation is the formal language CycL, described > below. The KB consists of terms--which constitute the vocabulary of > CycL--and assertions which relate those terms. These > assertions include > both simple ground assertions and rules. > > .. > > The Cyc KB is divided into many (currently thousands of) > "microtheories", each of which is essentially a bundle of assertions > that share a common set of assumptions; some microtheories > are focused > on a particular domain of knowledge, a particular level of detail, a > particular interval in time, etc. The microtheory mechanism > allows Cyc > to independently maintain assertions which are prima facie > contradictory, and enhances the performance of the Cyc system by > focusing the inferencing process. > > .. > > Natural-language (NL) processing is among the most studied -- > and most > intractable -- outstanding challenges of software engineering. Many > teams have attempted to produce NL systems capable of reading > and making > sense of plain english text, but none have succeeded to any > significant > degree outside of narrow, pre-conceived domains. As shown in the > examples below, Cyc-like common sense is a prerequisite for > human-level > competence at this task. > > Consider the following pair of sentences: > > * Fred saw the plane flying over Zurich. > * Fred saw the mountains flying over Zurich. > > Although the sentences are very similar, humans have little > difficulty > in recognizing that in the first sentence, "flying" probably > refers to > the plane, while in the second sentence, "flying" almost certainly > refers to Fred. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, > archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
