Formal Ontology and Information Systems

1
Formal Ontology and Information Systems

• Barry Smith
• http//ifomis.de

2

• Institute for Formal Ontology and Medical
  Information Science
• (IFOMIS)
• Faculty of Medicine
• University of Leipzig
• http//ifomis.de

3
The Idea

• Computational medical research
• will transform the discipline of medicine
• but only if communication problems can be solved

4
Database standardization

• is desperately needed in medicine
• to enable the huge amounts of data
• resulting from trials by different groups
• to be fused together

5
How resolve incompatibilities?

• ONTOLOGY the solution of first resort
• (compare kicking a television set)
• But what does ontology mean?
• Current most popular answer a collection of
  terms and definitions satisfying constraints of
  description logic

6
Enterprise Ontology

• A Sale is an agreement between two Legal-Entities
  for the exchange of a Product for a Sale-Price.
• A Strategy is a Plan to Achieve a high-level
  Purpose.
• A Market is all Sales and Potential Sales within
  a scope of interest.

7
Wall Street Journal 11 July 2002

• that the original high hopes of B2B automation
  were not realized turns on the fact that there
  are many highly nuanced features of business
  transactions, known only tacitly to those
  involved, the failure to take account of which
  has had disastrous consequences for those involved

8
Gene Ontology

• Molecular Function Ontology tasks performed by
  individual gene products
• examples transcription factor, DNA helicase
• Biological Process Ontology broad biological
  goals accomplished by ordered assemblies of
  molecular functions
• examples mitosis, purine metabolism
• Cellular Component Ontology subcellular
  structures, locations, and macromolecular
  complexes
• examples nucleus, telomere

9
Example from Molecular Function Ontology

• hormone GO0005179
• digestive hormone GO0046659
• peptide hormone GO0005180 adrenocorticotrop
  in GO0017043 glycopeptide hormone
  GO0005181 follicle-stimulating hormone
  GO0016913

10
as tree

• hormone
• digestive hormone peptide hormone
• adrenocorticotropin
  glycopeptide hormone
• 
  follicle-stimulating hormone

11
Problem There exist multiple databases

• genomic
• cellular
• structural
• phenotypic
• and even for each specific type of information,
  e.g. DNA sequence data, there exist several
  databases of different scope and organisation

12
What is a gene?

• GDB a gene is a DNA fragment that can be
  transcribed and translated into a protein
• Genbank a gene is a DNA region of biological
  interest with a name and that carries a genetic
  trait or phenotype
• (from Schulze-Kremer)

13
What is blood?

• Unified Medical Language System (UMLS)
• blood is a tissue
• Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine (SNOMED)
• blood is a fluid

14
Statements of Accounts

• Company Financial statements may be prepared
  under either the (US) GAAP or the (European) IASC
  standards
• These allocate cost items to different
  categories depending on the laws of the countries
  involved.

15
Ontologys job

• is to develop an algorithm for the automatic
  conversion of income statements and balance
  sheets between the two systems.
• Not even this relatively simple problem has been
  satisfactorily resolved
• why not?

16
Applications ontology

• grew out of work in knowledge representation

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Applications ontology

• Ontologies are applications running in real time
• ontologies are inside the computer
• thus subject to severe constraints on expressive
  power
• (effectively the expressive power of description
  logic, a logic for manipulating hierarchies of
  concepts/general terms)

18
Applications ontology cannot solve the
data-fusion problem

• because of its roots in knowledge mining

19
different conceptual systems
20
need not interconnect at all
21
because of the limits of knowledge mining
22
we cannot make incompatible concept-systems
interconnect
just by looking at concepts, or knowledge we
need some tertium quid
23
Applications ontology

• has its philosophical roots in Quines doctrine
  of ontological commitment and in the internal
  metaphysics of Carnap/Putnam
• Roughly, for an applications ontology the world
  and the semantic model are one and the same
• What exists what the system says exists

24
again semantic models need not interconnect at
all
25
What is needed

• in some sort of wider common framework which is
  sufficiently rich and nuanced to allow concept
  systems deriving from different sources to be
  hand-callibrated

26
What is needed

• is not an applications ontology
• but
• a reference ontology

27
Reference Ontology

• grew out of logic and analytic metaphysics
• An ontology is a theory of the relevant domain
  of entities
• Ontology is outside the computer
• seeks maximal expressiveness and adequacy to
  reality
• willing to sacrifice computational tractability
  for the sake of representational adequacy

28
Belnap

• it is a good thing logicians were around before
  computer scientists
• if computer scientists had got there first,
  then we wouldnt have numbers
• because arithmetic is undecidable

29
It is a good thing

• Aristotelian metaphysics was around before
  description logic,
• because otherwise we would have only hierarchies
  of
• concepts/universals/classes and no individual
  instances

30
Reference Ontology

• a theory of the tertium quid
• called
• reality
• needed to hand-callibrate database/terminology
  systems

31
Methodology

• Get ontology right first
• (realism descriptive adequacy rather powerful
  logic)
• solve tractability problems later

32
The Reference Ontology Community

• IFOMIS (Leipzig)
• Laboratories for Applied Ontology (Trento, Rome,
  Turin)
• Foundational Ontology Project (Leeds)
• Ontology Works (Baltimore)
• Ontek Corporation (Buffalo/Leeds)
• LandC (Belgium/Philadelphia)

33
Domains of Current Work in Reference Ontology

• IFOMIS Leipzig Medicine
• Laboratories for Applied Ontology
• Trento/Rome Ontology of Cognition/Language
• Turin Law
• Foundational Ontology Project (Leeds) Space,
  Physics
• Ontology Works (Baltimore) Genetics, Molecular
  Biology
• Ontek Corporation (Buffalo/Leeds) Biological
  Systematics
• LandC (Belgium/Philadelphia) Medical NLP

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Some Historical Background on Reference Ontology
35
Recall

• GDB a gene is a DNA fragment that can be
  transcribed and translated into a protein
• Genbank a gene is a DNA region of biological
  interest with a name and that carries a genetic
  trait or phenotype
• (from Schulze-Kremer)

36
Ontology

• Note that terms like fragment, region,
  name, carry, trait, type
• along with terms like part, whole,
  function, substance, inhere
• are ontological terms in the sense of traditional
  (philosophical) ontology

37
Aristotle
First ontologist

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First ontology (from Porphyrys Commentary on
Aristotles Categories)
39
Linnaean Ontology
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Formal Ontology

• term coined by Edmund Husserl
• the theory of those ontological structures
• such as part-whole, universal-particular
• which apply to all domains whatsoever

41
Edmund Husserl
42
Husserl outlines a new methodof constituent
ontology

• to study a domain ontologically
• is to establish the parts of the domain
• and the interrelations between them
• especially the dependence relations

43
Logical Investigations1900/01

• Aristotelian theory of universals and particulars
• theory of part and whole
• theory of ontological dependence
• the theory of boundaries and fusion

44
Formal Ontology

• contrasted with material or regional ontologies
• (compare relation between pure and applied
  mathematics)
• Husserls idea
• If we can build a good formal ontology, this
  should save time and effort in building reference
  ontologies for each successive domain

45
Basic Formal Ontology

• BFO
• The Vampire Slayer

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Basic Formal Ontology

• Aristotelian theory of universals and instances
• theory of part and whole
• theory of ontological dependence
• theory of boundary, continuity and contact
• theory of states, powers, qualities, roles
  (SPQR-entities)
• theory of processes
• theory of environments/niches/contexts and
  spatial and spatio-temporal regions

47
BFO

• not just a system of categories
• but a formal theory
• with definitions, axioms, theorems
• designed to provide the resources for reference
  ontologies for specific domains
• the latter should be of sufficient richness that
  terminological incompatibilities can be resolves
  intelligently rather than by brute force

48
Three types of reference ontology

• 1) formal ontology framework for rigorous
  definition of the highly general concepts such
  as object, event, whole, part employed in every
  domain
• 2) domain ontology, a top-level system with a few
  highly general concepts, applies formal ontology
  to a particular domain, such as genetics or
  medicine
• 3) terminology-based ontology, a very large
  system embracing many concepts and inter-concept
  relations

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MedO medical domain ontology

• including sub-ontologies
• cell ontology
• drug ontology
• protein ontology
• gene ontology

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other sub-ontologies

• anatomical ontology
• epidemiological ontology
• disease ontology
• therapy ontology
• pathology ontology
• the whole designed to give structure to the
  medical domain
• (currently medical education comparable to
  stamp-collecting)

51
MedO

• and its various sub-ontologies will inherit the
  definitions and axioms of BFO but will add new
  definitions and axioms of their own

52
Granularity

• cell ontology
• drug ontology
• protein ontology
• gene ontology
• imply that we need also a theory of granularity

53
Ontology

• like cartography
• must work with maps at different scales
• How fit these maps (conceptual grids) together
  into a single system?
• IFOMIS is developing a theory of granular
  partitions designed to provide a framework within
  which different maps/views of the same reality
  can be combined together

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Testing the BFO/MedO approach

• within a software environment for NLP of
  unstructured patient records
• collaborating with
• Language and Computing nv (www.landc.be)

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LC

• LinKBase worlds largest terminology-based
  ontology
• incorporating UMLS, SNOMED, etc.
• LinKFactory suite for developing and managing
  large terminology-based ontologies

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LinKBase

• LinKBase close to being a flat list
• BFO and MedO designed to add depth, and so also
  reasoning capacity
• by tagging LinKBase terms with corresponding
  BFO/MedO categories

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Part Two

• Reference Ontology
• and Agent-Based/Situated Computing

59

• Agents encapsulated computer systems that are
  situated in some environment and are capable of
  flexible, autonomous action in that environment
  in order to meet their design objectives.
• Interactions Such agents invariably need to
  interact with one another in order to manage
  their inter-dependencies. These interactions
  involve agents cooperating, negotiating and
  coordinating with one another.
• Organisations The agents' interactions take
  place within some organisational context (eg a
  marketplace or some other form of electronic
  institution).
• Particular prominence is given to automated
  cooperation, coordination and negotiation using
  techniques such as game theory, argumentation,
  computational economics, and belief-desire-intenti
  on models.
• From Southampton IAM

60
Shimon Edelmans Riddle of Representation

• two humans, a monkey, and a robot are looking at
  a piece of cheese
• what is common to the representational processes
  in their visual systems?

61
Answer
The cheese, of course
62
Rodney Brooks

• opposition between the Engineering view and the
  SMPA View

63
SMPA model

• Sense Model Plan Act
• the agent first senses its environment through
  sensors
• then uses this data to build a model of the world
• then produces a plan to achieve goals
• then acts on this plan

64
Proposal

• SMPA belongs to the same methodological universe
  as Applications Ontology
• If we want to build an intelligent agent within
  this framework, there need to be representations
  of the domain within which the agent acts which
  are inside the computer

65
Engineering Approach

• The system embodies a number of distinct layers
  of activity (compare faculties of the mind)
• These layers operate independently and connect
  directly to the environment outside the system
• Each layer operates as a complete system that
  copes in real time with a changing environment
• Layers evolve through interaction with the
  environment (artificial insects/vehicles )

66
Brooks Engineering Approach

• lends very little weight to the role of
  representations or models
• At the same time it insists that AI should use
  the world in all its complexity in producing
  systems that react directly to the world
• An ontology appropriate for this approach would
  have to include within its purview both the world
  and the system,
• thus be essentially richer than the system alone

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An intelligent system

• must be situated
• it is situatedness which gives the processes
  within each layer meaning
• meaning exists precisely in the relation to the
  world,
• the world serves also as to unify the different
  layers together and to make them compatible

68
I know where the book is

• I know how to find it
• I know what the square root of 2489 is
• I know how to calculate it
• I know how to recognize the presence of a tiger
• by smell, noise (in real-world context)

69
A. Clark, Being There

• humans can accomplish much without building
  detailed, internal models we rely on
• Epistemic action
• writing one large number above another to
  multiply them with pen on paper

70
A. Clark, Being There

• we can rely also on
• External scaffolding maps, models, tools,
  landmarks, buildings, language, culture
• we act so as to simplify cognitive tasks by
  "leaning on" the structures in our environment.

71
Cf. Brooks

• Organisms, especially humans, find their
  dispositions in their muscle-tone and in the
  balance of hormones coursing through their blood
  streams, not just in their brains.
• They fix their beliefs not only in their heads
  but in their worlds, as they attune themselves
  differently to different parts of the world as a
  result of their experience. And they pull the
  same trick with their memories, not only by
  rearranging their parsing of the world (their
  understanding of what they see), but by marking
  it.
• They place traces out there which changes what
  they will be confronted with the next time it
  comes around. Thus they don't have to carry their
  memories with them.
• Brooks, Intelligence without Representation

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Not all calculations are done inside the head

• Not all thinking is done inside the head

73
Gibsonian Ecological Psychology

• To understand human cognition we should study the
  moving, acting human person as it exists in its
  real-world environment
• and taking account how it has evolved into this
  real-world environment
• We are like tuning forks tuned to the
  environment which surrounds us, and this is a
  social environment which includes records and
  representations

74
Gibsonian Ecological View of Information Systems

• To understand information systems we should study
  the hardware as it exists embedded in its
  real-world environment
• and taking account of the environment for which
  it was designed and built
• Information systems are like tuning forks they
  resonate in tune to their surrounding
  environments e.g. through their biological and
  chemical sensors

75
The World Wide Web

• Vast amount of heterogeneous data sources
• Needs dramatically better support for richly
  structured ontologies in databases
• ability to query and integrate across
  different ontologies (e.g. Semantic Web)

76
Quineanism

• They took ontology as the study of the
  ontological commitments or presuppositions
  embodied in the beliefs of experts

77
Can we do better with the Gibsonian approach?
Test Domain Medical Terminology
78
So what is the ontology of blood?
79
We cannot solve this problem just by looking at
concepts in Fodorian fashion
80
concept systems may be simply incommensurable
81
the problem can only be solved
by taking the world itself into account
82
and by recognizing

• that the same object can be apprehended at
  different levels of granularity
• at the perceptual level blood is a liquid
• at the cellular level blood is a tissue

83
This implies a view of ontology

• not as a theory of concepts
• but as a theory of reality
• But how is this possible?
• How can we get beyond our concepts?
• answer ontology must be maximally opportunistic
• it must relate not to beliefs, concepts,
  syntactic strings but to the world itself

84
Maximally opportunistic

• means
• look at concepts and beliefs critically
• and always in the context of a wider view which
  includes independent ways to access the objects
  themselves
• at different levels of granularity
• and taking account of tacit knowledge of those
  features of reality of which the domain experts
  are not consciously aware

85
Maximally opportunistic

• means
• look not at what the expert says
• but at what the expert does
• Experts have expertise knowing how
• Ontologists can have windows on reality, by
  focusing on categories, and can extract some form
  of knowing that
• Gibsonianism experts dont know what the
  ontologist knows

86
Ontology must be maximally opportunistic

• This means
• dont just look at beliefs
• look at the objects themselves
• from every possible direction,
• formal and informal
• scientific and non-scientific

87
Maximally opportunistic

• means
• look at the same objects at different levels of
  granularity

88
Second step select out the good
conceptualizations

• these have a reasonable chance of being
  integrated together into a single ontological
  system
• based on tested principles
• robust
• conform to natural science

89
Partitions should be cuts through reality

• a good medical ontology should NOT be compatible
  with a conceptualization of disease as caused by
  evil spirits

90
A Theory of Contexts, Settings, Environments for
Social Acts

• X counts as Y in context C
• What kinds of entities are social contexts?

91
Reinach

• a priori ontological structures in the social
  realm are transcategorial
• involving experiences, intentions, language,
  action, deontic powers, background collective
  habits, mental competences, records,
• PLUS social environments

92
The bonds

• established by Reinachs proto-structures of
  promise, claim and obligation
• can normally arise only within miniature civil
  societies,
• within which special sorts of environmental
  conditions are satisfied

93
The Idea Contexts can be Nested One Inside
Another

• Many settings occur in assemblies
• A unit in the middle range of a nesting
  structure is simultaneously both circumjacent and
  interjacent,
• both whole and part, both entity and
  environment. (Roger Barker)
• Compare the hierarchical organization of the
  human body into organs, cells,

94
Human body

• Rigidly hierachical, modular organization with
  many things which can go wrong
• Held together by physico-chemical bonds

95
Large-scale social organizations

• are held together by micro-social bonds as
  described by Reinach
• The whole organized as a rigidly hierarchical,
  modular nesting structure, with many things which
  can go wrong

96
Ecological Psychology

• Gibson Perception
• Roger Barker Society
• Barkers
• Ecological Ontology of Social Reality

97
Barker on Unity of Social Reality

• On Reinachs transcategoriality
• The conceptual incommensurability of phenomena
  which is such an obstacle to the unification of
  the sciences does not appear to trouble natures
  units.
• Within the larger units, things and events from
  conceptually more and more alien sciences are
  incorporated and regulated.

98
Barker on Unity of Social Reality

• As far as our behaviour is concerned, even
  the most radical diversity of kinds and
  categories need not prevent integration

99
we must be tuned, automatically, to social reality

• J. J. Gibsons ecological psychology we are
  tuned automatically to perceptual reality

100
How to solve this problem

• (and why are buildings important?)
• Compare the way in which the physical properties
  of ROADS help people to obey the traffic laws
  when driving
• Deal with obligations, norms not via deontic
  logic but via the comparison with roads?

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First step A Theory of Environments

• Biological environments
• Niches
• Places

102
Environments a Neglected Major Category in the
History of Ontology

• Substances
• States, Qualities, Powers, Roles
• Processes
• Environments
• -- environments missing from Aristotle,
  from DOLCE, from entity-relationship models

103
Ecological Niche Concepts

• niche as particular place or subdivision of an
  environment that an organism or population
  occupies (TOKEN)
• vs.
• niche as function of an organism or population
  within an ecological community (TYPE)

104
Human beings live in complex environments

• Recall Reinachs notion of transcategorial
  relations
• Merlin Donald,The Origins of the Modern Mind
• notion of external memory

105
The Ecological Psychology of J. J. Gibson and
Roger Barker
106
Affordances

• The affordances of the environment are what it
  offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes,
  either for good or evil.
• James J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to
  Visual Perception

107
Organisms are tuning forks

• They have evolved to resonate automatically and
  directly to those quality regions in their niche
  which are relevant for survival
• -- perception is a form of automatic resonation
• -- cognitive beings resonate to speech acts and
  to linguistic records
• -- cognitive beings resonate deontically

108
affordances positive and negative features of
the environment

• permissions and prohibitions

109
Roger Barker Niche as Behavioral Setting

• Niches are recurrent settings which serve as the
  environments for our everyday activities
• my swimming pool,
• your table in the cafeteria,
• the 5pm train to Long Island.

110
Behavior Settings

• Each behavior setting is associated with certain
  standing patterns of behavior.

111
Settings, for Barker,

• are natural units in no way imposed by an
  investigator.
• To laymen they are as objective as rivers and
  forests
• they are parts of the objective environment
  that are experienced as directly as rain and
  sandy beaches are experienced. (Barker 1968, p.
  11)

112
Settings

• Each setting has a boundary which separates an
  organized internal (foreground) pattern from a
  differing external (background) pattern.
• ORGANIZATIONS ARE BUILDINGS
• ORGANIZATIONS ARE NESTED SYSTEMS OF SETTINGS
• SETTINGS ARE LIKE THE INTERIORS OF BUILDINGS

113
The Ontology of Niches

• Niches are in some ways like the interiors of
  substances
• Two concepts of spaceship
• John is in the spaceship
• The embryo is in the uterus
• The yoghurt is in the refrigerator
• Niches and quasi-niches
• Substances and quasi-substances

114
Two concepts of spaceship

• John is in London
• John saw London from the air
• London ? London
• IBM ? IBM
• John admired her car
• John was sitting in her car
• A is part of B vs. A is in the interior of B as
  a tenant is in its niche

115
The Ontology of Niches

• Niches as endurants
• Niches as four-dimensional spatiotemporally
  extended volumes

116
Marks of (bodily) substance

1. Rounded-offness
2. Occupies space
3. Complete boundary
4. May have substantial parts (nesting)
5. May be included in larger substances
6. Has a life (manifests contrary accidents at
   different times)

117
Corresponding Marks of Niches

• (i) A niche enjoys a certain natural completeness
  or rounded-offness,
• being neither too small nor too large
• in contrast to the arbitrary undetached parts
  of environmental settings and to arbitrary heaps
  or aggregates of environmental settings.

118
(ii) A niche takes up space,

• it occupies a physical-temporal locale,
• and is such as to have spatial parts.
• Within this physical-temporal locale is a
  privileged locusa hole
• into which the tenant or occupant of the setting
  fits exactly.

119
(iii) A niche

• has an outer boundary
• there are objects which fall clearly within it,
• and other objects which fall clearly outside it.
  
• (The boundary itself need not be crisp.)

120
(iv) A niche

• may have actual parts which are also
  environmental settings
• (hierarchical nesting)

121
(v) A niche

• may be a proper part of larger, circumcluding
  niche.

122
(vi) A niche has a life

• is now warm, now cold
• now at peace, now at war .
• now expanding, now contracting

123
Marks of (bodily) substance

1. Rounded-offness
2. Occupies space
3. Complete boundary
4. May have substantial parts (nesting)
5. May be included in larger substances
6. Has a life is now warm, now cold

124
Niche Construction

• Lewontin niches normally arise in symbiosis
  with the activities of organisms or groups of
  organisms
• they are not already there, like vacant rooms in
  a gigantic evolutionary hotel, awaiting organisms
  who would evolve into them.
• ecosystem engineering

125
Applications of the niche concept

• in biology, ecology
• in medicine (embryology )
• in anthropology
• in economics
• in the ontology of artifacts
• in law
• in politics

126
Where are Niches?
127
Where are Places?
128
Gibsons theory of surface layout

• Niches systems of barriers, openings, pathways
  to which organisms are specifically attuned,
• Include temperature gradients, patterns of
  movement of air or water molecules,
  electro-chemical signals guiding the movements of
  micro-organisms
• But also traffic signs, instructions posted on
  notice boards or displayed on the computer screen
  

129
Nesting

• Many settings occur in assemblies
• A unit in the middle range of a nesting
  structure is simultaneously both circumjacent and
  interjacent,
• both whole and part,
• both entity and environment.

130
Unity of Behaviour and Ecological Setting

• A physical-behavioural unit is a unit its parts
  are unified together, but not through any
  similarity or community of substance.

131
The Systematic Mutual Fittingness of Behaviour
and Ecological Setting

• The behaviour and the physical objects are
  intertwined in such a way as to form a pattern
  that is by no means random there is a relation
  of harmonious fit between the standard patterns
  of behaviour occurring within the unit and the
  pattern of its physical components.
• Compare the way in which the processes in the
  body are constrained by the hierarchical
  organization of body, organs, cells

132
The Systematic Mutual Fittingness of Behaviour
and Ecological Setting

• (The seats in the lecture hall face the speaker.
  The speaker addresses his remarks out towards the
  audience. The boundary of the football field is,
  leaving aside certain predetermined exceptions,
  the boundary of the game. The beginning and end
  of the school music period mark the limits of the
  pattern of music behaviour.)

133
Non-transposability

• This mutual fittingness of behaviour and
  physical environment extends to the fine,
  interior structure of behaviour in a way which
  will imply a radical nontransposability of
  standing patterns of behaviour from one
  environment to another.
• The physical or historical or ceremonial
  conditions obtaining in particular settings are
  in addition as essential for some kinds of
  behaviour as are persons with the requisite
  authority, motives and skills.

134
Power and Authority

• There are various forces which help to bring
  about and to sustain this mutual fittingness and
  thus to constitute the unity of the
  physical-behavioural unit through time.
• Forces which flow in the direction from setting
  to behaviour include physical constraints
  exercised by hedges, walls or corridors or by
  persons with sticks
• they include social forces manifested in the
  authority of the teacher, in threats, promises,
  warnings

135
The Unifying Effects of the Physical Environment

• they include the physiological effects of
  climate, the need for food and water and they
  include the effects of perceived physiognomic
  features of the environment
• (open spaces seduce children, a businesslike
  atmosphere encourages businesslike behaviour).

136
Mutual Fittingness

• can be reinforced by learning, and also by a
  process of selection of the persons involved,
  whether this be one of self-selection (of
  children who remain in Sunday school class in
  light of their ability to conform to the
  corresponding standing patterns of behaviour), or
  of externally imposed mental or physical entrance
  tests.

137
Behaviour shapes Setting

• Influences which flow from behaviour to setting,
  include all those ways in which a succession of
  separate and uncoordinated actions can have
  unintended consequences in the form of new types
  of actions and new, modified types of settings in
  the future
• (as the passage of many feet causes pathways to
  form in the hillside).

138
Settings shape Persons

• Each person has many strengths, many
  intelligences, many social maturities, many
  speeds, many degrees of liberality and
  conservativeness, and many moralities, depending
  in large part on the particular contexts of the
  person?s behavior. For example, the same person
  who displays marked obtusiveness when confronted
  with a mechanical problem may show impressive
  skill and adroitness in dealing with social
  situations.

139
Aurel Kolnai

• a human society
• comprehends the same individual over and over
  again in line with his various social
  affiliations

140
Daily life

• passage through a succession of
  physical-behavioural units which
• are as much a part of the furniture of reality
  as are garden-variety continuants and occurrents
  (such as you and me).
• Physical-behavioural units have parts.
• And they have consequences
• contracts signed, orders issued, judgments
  passed, medals awarded.

141
The bonds

• established by Reinachs protostructures of
  promise, claim and obligation
• can normally arise only within miniature civil
  societies,
• within which special sorts of environmental
  conditions are satisfied
• Austin a promise is a sort of ritual
• Holds of commands in large-scale organizations
  too.

142
Theory of roles/functions/powers

• of greater and lesser generality
• How are roles/functions/powers within a
  hierarchical organization themselves nested
  together hierarchically?
• Orders not issued in a vacuum
• systems of external memory
• records and representations
• procedures for authentication

143
A niche

• may have actual parts which are also
  environmental settings
• (hierarchical nesting)
• ? Theory of the organization of organizations
• the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche
  called IBM
• the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche
  called US-Division 4B/661 of IBM (YOU ARE THE
  BOSS)
• the roles you take on as inhabitant of the niche
  called your local office (YOU ISSUE COMMANDS)

144
SPAN Entities extended in time
spatio- temporal volumes
145
4-dimensional environments

• Lobsters have evolved into environments marked
  by cyclical patterns of temperature change
• Tudor England
• The Afghan winter
• The window of opportunity for an invasion of
  Iraq

146
1
spatio- temporal volumes
standardized patterns of behavior
147
but also at the reality beyond
148
Logical Investigations1900/01

• Aristotelian theory of universals and particulars
• theory of part and whole
• theory of ontological dependence
• the theory of boundaries and fusion

149
Husserl outlines a new methodof constituent
ontology

• to study a domain ontologically
• is to establish the parts of the domain
• and the interrelations between them
• especially the dependence relations

150
Ontological Dependence

• a wife is dependent on a husband
• a king is dependent on his subjects
• a color is dependent on an extension
• a charge is dependent on a conductor
• a speech act is dependent on a speaker

151
Husserls theory of part, whole and dependence

• applied by him to the ontological structure of
  language
• invention of categorial grammar,
• later formalized by Ajdukiewicz, Lambek

152
Husserls theory of part, whole and dependence

• applied by his student Adolf Reinach to the
  ontological structure of law
• ? invention of speech act theory in Reinachs A
  Priori Foundations of the Civil Law in 1913

153
(No Transcript)
154
Speech Acts

• Examples requesting, questioning, answering,
  ordering, imparting information, promising,
  commanding, baptising
• acts of the mind which do not have in words
  and the like their accidental additional
  expression
• Social acts acts which are performed in the
  very act of speaking

155
Reinachs theory of social acts

• part of a complete a priori ontology of social
  interaction
• a theory of actions, agents, ogligations,

156
Communication between agents

• Lucs MSc thesis and Reinach
• Agents are in the world, they have to achieve
  their goals in relation to a particular
  environment, and adapt to this environment
• Agents are with other agents they have to
  cooperate with each other not merely to
  communicate but also form agreement (form
  miniature civil societies)

157
Communication

• can be with human beings or agents inside
  computers
• therefore the ontology of communication cannot
  itself be inside the computer
• it has to be much, much bigger

158
Reinach

• Commanding
• does not involve an experience which is
  expressed but which could have remained
  unexpressed,
• there is nothing about commanding which could
  rightly be taken as the pure announcing of an
  internal experience.

159
Reinach

• Commanding is rather an experience all its own,
  a doing of the subject to which in addition to
  its spontaneity, its intentionality and its
  other-directedness, the need to be grasped is
  also essential.

160
Some events depend on underlying states

• An assertion depends upon an underying state of
  conviction/belief
• A command depends upon an underlying relational
  state of authority

161
Some events give rise to states

• Perception gives rise to conviction/belief as
  its successor state John sees that Mary is
  swimming
• Promising gives rise to claim and obligation as
  its successor states

162
The Structure of the Promise
promisee
promiser
relations of one-sided dependence
163
The Structure of the Promise
promisee
promiser
three-sided mutual dependence
164
The Structure of the Promise
two-sided mutual dependence
oblig-ation
claim
165
The Structure of the Promise
action do F
tendency towards realization
oblig-ation
claim
166
The Background (Environment)
167
Modifications of Social Acts

• Sham promises
• Lies as sham assertions (cf. a forged signature)
  rhetorical questions
• Social acts performed in someone elses name
  (representation, delegation)
• Social acts with multiple addresses
• Conditional social acts

168
Collective social acts

• Singing in a choir
• Conversation
• Dancing
• Arguing
• Religious rituals

169
How modific-ations occur
The Background (Environment)
170
How modific-ations occur
The Background (Environment)
171
How modific-ations occur
The Background (Environment)
172
How modific-ations occur
The Background (Environment)
173
Contrast E-commerce application ontologies

• bill
• deliver
• est-cust
• identify-product-price
• order
• offer-product
• purchase
• pay

174
Humans, Machines, and the Structure of Knowledge

• Harry M. Collins
• SEHR, 4 2 (1995)

175
Knowledge-down-a-wire

• Imagine a 5-stone weakling having his brain
  loaded with the knowledge of a champion tennis
  player.
• He goes to serve in his first match
• -- Wham!
• his arm falls off.
• He just doesn't have the bone structure or
  muscular development to serve that hard.

176
Types of knowledge/ability/skill

• those that can be transferred simply by passing
  signals from one brain/computer to another.
• those that cant

177
Sometimes it is the body (the hardware) which
knows
178
and sometimes it is the world outside which knows
179
Types of knowledge/ability/skill

• those that can be transferred simply by passing
  signals from one brain/computer to another.
• those that cant
• -- here the "hardware" is important
• abilities/skills contained
• (a) in the body
• (b) in the world

180
From

• The Methodological Solipsist Approach to
  Information Processing
• To
• The Ecological Approach to Information Processing

181
Fodorian Psychology

• To understand human cognition we should study the
  mind/brain in abstraction from its real-world
  environment
• (as if it were a hermetically sealed Cartesian
  ego)