On Jun 20, 2007, at 10:08 AM, Kashyap, Vipul wrote:
VK> I think Pat raises a very valid point. I do
sense that folks are treating BFO as ³true² and
sometimes probably trying to shoe-horn their
requirements into it. The scientific method
requires that the various constructs and
distinctions of BFO (and for that matter others
such as DOLCE, OpenCyc, etc.) be evaluated from
the use perspective and see if they bring any
value in the context of a real application
probably healthcare and life sciences.
Usually I think of the scientific method as
trying to determine truth, not utility, though
as you know I'm a big one for utility. Note that
my general support for BFO has been based on its
utility in collaboratively building ontologies
for combining knowledge, particularly OBI and in
the HCLS demo. I'm quite interested in anyone
else's work that might be used to be able to
evaluate alternatives, but I plan to invest my
limited time in continuing to use and improve
BFO until it breaks in a way that can't be fixed.
Fair enough. I wouldn't want to suggest that this
'breaking' is likely to happen when using BFO. I
do believe that a simpler framework would provide
as much utility; but at this stage this
observation may be a bit like moaning about the
size of Windows compared with OS X.
BTW, I do not intend to evaluate whether these
constructs are ontologically sound, etc. but
the question we need to answer as a group is:
Are these constructs useful?
I don't know what "ontologically sound" means. I
would offer that a "best practice" would be be
to make sure that part of our "acceptance tests"
for agreeing that something is useful is that
many of us understand what is meant by a
construct.
Fair enough, though I would suggest strengthening
it and making it more empirical: that many of
y'all understand *and all agree* what is meant by
a construct. So that a recurrent need to have
discussions about whether or not a construct
applies to a new case, may be a sign that it is
not as well mutually understood as one initially
thought.
Another acceptance test I would urge on y'all is
to ask, of each construct, what utility it might
be. For example, of a proposed distinction, is
making this distinction useful (for what?), or
does it simply make a distinction, which could be
ignored?
Pat
-Alan
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