[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> internetontology[ Cyc and D. Lenat ]

[Martin Pichlmair <e9626313@student.tuwien.ac.at>]

hi all,

that is an interesting topic. knowledge of the world. in a database ( not
to mention the word hierarchical, you use). i wonder if you ever read
goedel...

another detail: where does a fact become knowledge. in this case,
knowledge has to be defined as "worth of being entered into this
database". is it as soon as someone cares about it? as soon as someone
pays for it? in my opinion, this is NOT the definition of knowledge i
learned on the university.

but historical "events" where people decided, what reality is (and defined
knowledge through this), always tend to redefine knowledge by neglecting
the opinions of critics and accepting those of the defining ones (often
without proof). from this view, it seems like ANY attempt to define
knowledge has to be "repressive" against someone. take the catholic church
in europe in the medieval ages for example. knowledge can so easily be
misused, when it is based upon opinions and not facts (so, redefined).

i really wonder how this database handles contrary points of view. do they
give different meaning a kind of "weight" or "propability factor". to
reflect the situation of the real world, i would suggest a mixture of
random and a link to "culture profiles". we are getting close to where we
don't want to get.

if you want to read more about how to define what's a fact and what's
nonsense, what is DECIDED to be real (as part of the reality), i recommend
the book "troika" by the strugatzky brothers (russian scifi authors). in
german it is available as part of the fantastic "fantastische bibliothek"
by suhrkamp verlag.


martin pi

ps: as i always have to post :: don't mistake bad english for bad
thoughts!




On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, josh zeidner wrote:

> 
> Hi Brian!
> 
>   Are you familiar with the Cyc project lead by Doug
> Lenat?  It is essentially an attempt to construct an
> ontology for the ENTIRE WORLD.  They have actually
> managed to encode quite a bit of data.  A small subset
> of it is available as open source.
> 
>   http://www.cyc.com
>   http://www.opencyc.org
> 
>   I think that there is something drastically flawed
> with the ideas behind projects such as these.  To
> assume that knowledge is empirical or fixed would
> result in a sort of tyranny of thought, where only one
> particlar system of signification dominates( the one
> that is cheapest to purchase? ), and its
> interpretation would be the monopoly of those who have
> access to the physical device.  Many would say that
> this flaw would eventually make itself evident in
> operational shortcomings, but Im afraid this may not
> be the case.  Should enough people have thier vested
> interests in such a technology or thought paradigm,
> then it will be FORCED on people, much the same way an
> inferior technology like MS-DOS is popular simply due
> to commercial reasons.  And when people become
> immersed in it, they mistake it for the truth.
> 
>   Lenat also expressed an interesting concern.  The
> owners of Cyc released a part of it as open source
> with the hopes that developers would independently
> develop new ontologies using thier(proprietary)
> encoding syntax.  What Doug Lenat was concerned about
> was that there would be conflicting ontologies, or
> possibly even a informational schism resulting in many
> cyc databases of knowledge.  What Lenat hopes to do is
> to have the company consolidate the data as it sees
> fit.  Will Doug Lenat be the final say on "life, the
> universe, and everthing?".
> 
>   Right now, the project seems fairly harmless.  I
> actually applied for employment there recently.  But
> could we, in the future, have a centralized hierachial
> database of real world knowledge that cannot be
> challenged simply because "thats what it says"( if the
> computer says so it must be true! )?  Sounds like the
> catholic church of the middle ages.  Hello dark age
> part II.
> 
>   naturally, the military has taken interest in the
> project for some reason or another.
>  
> 
>  -josh zeidner
>    
> > >
> > >ShelfLife, No. 8 (28 June 2001)
> > >
>  <...>
> 
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                               : martin pi 
                      contact  :
e9626313@student.tuwien.ac.at  :  0699 10443742
  johann strauss gasse 32 / 7  :  1040 vienna
                               :  http://stud3.tuwien.ac.at/~e9626313


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