June 1, 2005
Notational Standards
discussion à
The Roadmap for Semantic
technology adoption à
The next generation knowledge tools
(on recognizing response
degeneracy, or singularity, in the function to structure determination)
We note here also that Tim Berners-Lee has personally asked not to be part of this discussion.
We will leave it to others to confirm his behavioral reactions to principled criticism, but will here re-state the BCNGroup's opinion that the world has a leadership in the Semantic Web community that has created a polemic.
The polemic is a general systems property, as are all polemics.
We, the BCNGroup Founding Committee, conjecture that this polemic works because of the confusion that exists within our culture. Tim is unwilling to examine this polemic and the consequences that this polemic has created. Why? You will have to ask him.
The polemic phenomenon is one in which a complex system "hides the internal essence of itself" is discussed in Robert Laughlin's book (2005), "A Different Universe, reinventing physics form the ground up", chapter 12. Maturana and Valeria talk about this with the concept of "autopoiesis" [1].
The concepts talked about in Laughlin’s book lead some individuals to the spiritual discussion (that so many of us long for), and to the debate that is arising about "intelligent design" and scientific reductionism. A polemic is created by the media (PBS, for example). The polemic claims that all natural scientists believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is “completed science”. This polemic is based on an error in their reporting.
As Jay indicates, this discussion, grounded in physics, transcends Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, etc cultures. Laughlin talks about this as the "dark side" of matter, but Laughlin does not go to the notion of a personalization of this dark side as many have done in the American Christian fundamentalism community.
The notion is left open to a notion, that the BCNGroup Founding Committee supports, where the arrow of time reflects a non-symmetry, empirically established by any child. This temporal non-symmetry then reflects the Sufi notion that we are in a flight towards God, and that there is not mere randomness in natural change. This supports the concept of "intelligent design".
The W3C standards have helps in certain ways to bring the concept of an ontology mediated information system into existence, but the foundational concepts are incorrect, in specific ways that TBL is not willing to examine. The polemic that he is instrumental in supporting is a dark side, and reflects institutional resistance to change. He could address this, but so far has not. He joins the 80% of the academy that is pervious to the changes that are necessary in our research and educational establishments.
Polemics of this type create an Emperor with no cloths, as Roger Penrose has suggested with his book, "The Emperor's New Mind".
So our "discovery" of a "Semantic Web Polemic" leads to Jay's discussion about Deming's role in transforming Japanese society after WWII concluded.
We see the need to transform some elements of a world wide culture that forsakes medical informatics in spite of the great deal of suffering; suffering that extends even to the populations of Americans with long term diseases such as various forms of arthritis.
The knowledge scientists, Ballard, Sowa, Prueitt, Adi, etc; labor in an economic/intellectual environment where the design principles for a knowledge operating system are simply absent in most semantic web work; and in the social discourse.
For example: visualization of ontological models is far too complex, unless there is an action-perception cycle that subsets the larger explicitly defined sets of concepts as if creating a figure in a figure ground shift in behavioral attention in living systems. The Roadmap discusses this issue, and OntologyStream Inc may produce the first ontological model visualization interface - but we struggle with this due to absence of funding.
We need enlighten programmers in India who will support the development of the knowledge operating system - without needing any income.
I have made the argument that at core the confusion stems from spiritual and moral confusions. These confusions are reflected in our (American) science, our formalism (mathematics), and in our educational processes. So in America, we cannot design, construct and deploy the knowledge operating system. We do not have this "right".
We, and I say “we” to mean the American society as this is my experience, are not confused by many other types of things. So one must approach a criticism of the establishment in a balanced fashion. If we do not, then the polemic works by focusing the discussion on something that is a distortion of the principled criticism.
This distortion is so common as to be indefensible. One simply must remain silent and work where the polemics do not control.
BCNGroup Founding Committee
ß Introduction to Jay in the digital Glass Bead Game
ß Joint Proposal (underdevelopment as of June 1, 2005)