Communications on a
National Project
Dick,
Yes, there are certainly many legislated
concepts, and they are valuable for many purposes:
> I cannot imagine that
there is anyone involved with
> ontology efforts, let
alone any attempt to integrate theory
> representation without
legislating (standardizing) concept
> meanings. The only
question is what discrimination features
> will be used initially
to bracket category granularity.
> Thereafter concept
definitions will be defined much as
> Webster defined words,
but without allowing 10-25 different
> meanings. Hereafter we will go to the ontology
reference
> much as we went before
to Webster.
Let us take the prototypical
mathematical concept: Number.
Originally, it meant the natural numbers starting with 1. Then the Indian
mathematicians invented a brilliant extension, which the Arabs adopted and
popularized, of extending the numbers to include 0. Later, mathematicians extended the concept to include
negative numbers, imaginary numbers, and then complex numbers, quaternions,
etc.
If mathematics isn't sufficient to
convince you, just go to physics, another very precise subject, and look at the
way the meanings of atom, energy, heat, force, mass, etc., have evolved over
the years. An atom was originally
defined as an indivisible (a-tom or not-cuttable) piece of matter. But when electrons were discovered,
people realized that atoms were composite. Then they discovered the proton and later quarks and gluons. Look at energy and matter, which were
originally distinct, but which are now considered to be interchangeable. And now perhaps people have discovered
the Higgs boson, which is responsible for giving matter its mass.
If you want something more relevant
to computers, just look at the diversity of the meanings of operating systems
and their components, as they vary from IBM mainframes, to Unix, to Mac, to
Windows, and to the diversity of programs that run all kinds of embedded
systems. The definitions of files,
records, tasks, processes, threads, etc., are different for all of these
systems -- and they vary with every new release or patch to every operating
system.
The same is true of programming
languages, which vary with every release -- just ask anybody who has ever tried
to write a large system that would behave the same (or even run) when it was
compiled with multiple releases of the same compiler, much less with
Microsoft's C, IBM's C, Borland's C, Gnu gcc, etc. Or look at the SQL standard, which ISO has legislated as an
International Standard, and then talk to anybody who has tried to convert a large
database running Oracle's version of SQL to or from IBM's version or
Microsoft's version or many, many others.
You can also look at the Academie
Francaise, which tried to legislate the meanings of French words (not in
anything nearly as precise as needed for computers, but they tried). The result
was that they stifled the growth of the French language, which resulted in
large amounts of French slang that never get into French dictionaries, and a
wholesale borrowing of English terms to supplement the official French. The Academie is busily trying to
legislate new terms, but they can't stem the tide.
Please note that none of this is
the result of language or notation.
Meanings grow and change with every new development of any kind. The only way to prevent meanings from
changing is to stop growth -- i.e., to destroy all life.
Summary: Your hopes of legislating the meanings of a
significant number of concepts are
(1) hopelessly
unrealistic,
(2) impossible
to enforce, and
(3) a disaster
waiting in the wings for anybody foolish enough to attempt it.
Growth and change are
inevitable. I suggest that you
learn to live with it, accommodate it, take advantage of it, and rejoice in it.
John