Re: [Meeting Summary: 22 Aug '00] & Bootstrapping Knowledge Representations

From: John J. Deneen (jjdeneen@ricochet.net)
Date: Sun Aug 27 2000 - 10:53:37 PDT


> > > * I suspect we should be basing our initial efforts around
> > > the analysis presented in this paper -- if not its
> > > proposed solution. If email is just a way to put information
> > > in the system, let's dispense with the concept of capuring
> > > email messages and go here, instead.
> > >
> > Isn't this somewhat akin to turning the Titanic?
> >
> I suspect it may be. The question is, are we focused on problem,
> and designing the best means for solving that problem, or are
> we focused on an architecture?

As a case in point, I think we too need to improve on "directly
addressing the problem of divergence and the Tunnel Vison Effect" when
collaborating on the OHS/DKR project.

For instance, on 6/7/00, I submitted to [unrev-II] a proposal for
"Bootstrapping Knowledge Representations" based on a reference to an
outstanding paper from our colleagues at the Principia Cybernetica
Project that eloquently summarizes and synthesizes these important ideas
now under discussion and wrote:

So the next-step is a CoDIAK co-evolution of the THOUGHTSTICKER program
originally developed by the late Gordon Pask.
(http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~rocha/pask.html). Francis Heylighen
(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html) suggests in his paper
"Bootstrapping knowledge representations: from entailment meshes via
semantic nets to learning webs" (1997).
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html:

"Such an implementation at the planetary scale was probably not
envisaged by Gordon Pask. Yet, his conversational systems and the
present vision of an intelligent web share their view of knowledge as a
collective construction striving to achieve coherence, rather than a
mapping of external objects. By abandoning the correspondence
epistemology and its reliance on fixed primitives, bootstrapping
approaches open the way to a truly flexible, adaptive and creative
knowledge system. Of course, the systems sketched here are still in
their infancy, and need to be thoroughly tested under diverse
circumstances, and implemented on a sufficiently large scale to show
their practical usefulness. This will obviously require a very large
effort. I hope that the
work of Gordon Pask, myself and our colleagues will provide sufficient
inspiration for other researchers to take up these challenges."

So, relative to the questions and discussions below, I'm going to
provide important excerpts from the paper about solutions we need to
consider (please refer to the referenced link above to read the whole
paper, especially if illustrations for figures don't display below):

"To describe my own solution to the problem, however, I prefer the
metaphor of bootstrapping. As said, the problem with correspondence
epistemologies is that they lack grounding: everything is built on top
of the symbols, which constitute the atoms of meaning; yet, the symbols
themselves are not supported. The advantage of a coherence epistemology
is that there is no need for a fixed ground or foundation on which to
build models: coherence is a two-way relation. In other words, coherent
concepts support each other. The dynamic equivalent of this mutual
support relation may be called "bootstrapping": Model A can be used to
help construct model B, while B is used to help construct A. It is as if
I am pulling myself up by my own bootstraps: while my arms (A) pull up
my boots (B), my boots at the same time--through my legs, back and
shoulders--push up my arms. The net effect is that more (complexity,
meaning, quality, ...) is produced out of less. This is the hallmark of
self-organization: the creation of structure without need for external
intervention.

I will now show how this bootstrapping philosophy can be applied to the
practical problem of knowledge representation, first by reviewing Pask's
entailment meshes, then by extending the underlying formalism to my own
entailment nets.

3. ENTAILMENT MESHES and the THOUGHTSTICKER program
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading4

4. BOOTSTRAPPING IN GRAPHS
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading5

            4.1. ENTAILMENT MESHES AS NON-DIRECTED GRAPHS
 http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading6

            4.2 ENTAILMENT NETS AND THE BOOTSTRAPPING AXIOM
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading7

            4.3. NODE INTEGRATION
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading8

5. BOOTSRAPPING SEMANTIC NETWORKS
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading9

            5.1. ONTOLOGICAL DISTINCTIONS AS BASIC NODE TYPES
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading10

            5.2. BASIC LINK TYPES
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading11

            5.3. FRAMES AND INHERITANCE
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading12

      6. Learning Webs
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading13

            6.1. ASSOCIATIVE NETWORKS
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading14

            6.2. ALGORITHMS FOR LEARNING HYPERTEXTS
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading15

            6.3. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading16

      7. Towards an Intelligent Web
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/BootstrappingPask.html#Heading17



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