A world of shared, virtual meaning

I have been musing on "The Semantic Web" -- the endeavor to make the internet intelligible to machines. I've been musing especially on the meaning of Meaning for the web.

Now, I've not the time to descend deeply into this, but a preliminary thought is this: meaning is the way that a world is intelligible -- it is inherently social, and it is the only way that a thing can be recognized and have a place and function (which is to say, the way the thing exists).

It is ironic that computer science should bump up against western philosophy so directly, borrowing language that was headed -- I feared -- into the memory of only a few.

But now, the word "ontology" is about to burst on the scene.

Ontology (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being to be> and -λογία: science, study, theory) is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

or

Ontologies are the key to linking conceptual real-world semantics defined and agreed upon by communities of users. An ontology is a formal explicit specification of a shared conceptualization [Gruber, 1993]

http://www.w3.org/Submission/WSMO/


The concept of ontology is at the heart of Heidegger's writings, and had its first flowering with Parmenides and Heraclitus (in the west, at least). It was very much concerned with how to understand and completely and accurately describe the most basic and common of all understandings of how our world is constructed (and our role in and as part of that construction). It is related to but different than the enterprise of either metaphysics (having to do with the first principles of the given world; determinism and free will, identity through time, mind and matter, etc.) or epistemology (how knowing occurs and is possible).

So, as one of the early imagineers of the internet, and before that a student of philosophy, I am naturally fascinated with the emergence of the notion an 'ontology' might describe a 'space of meaning' within the data on the web (and indeed, the internet); that from this world of shared meaning, assertions about subjects can be predicated by objects, that algorithmic reasoning can emerge from a language, and that machine intelligence might be possible.

Delicious!

On the one hand, I find myself a wholesale enthusiast. I'm looking forward to attending my first VoCamp at the end of the month. I'm anxious to understand what building an ontology might mean (so to speak) and who is involved in this very nascent "business" right now.

On the other, I wonder if this hasn't all gotten a bit out of hand. It seems somewhat odd, to me, to think that the discipline of developing a "theory of being" for the web - even domain by domain - is not only arduous and ad hoc - it is misplaced.

I suspect that, insofar as influence on the internet is concerned, that the question of a lexicon, taxonomy or ontology is really a matter of "for-what-purpose?" and "for-whose-end? rather than a purely descriptive exercise.

Now this is an interesting, exciting and somewhat disturbing prospect; that she-he-it that controls meaning, controls what the basic elements of a "shared conceptualization" (for a domain) will be. On the one hand, this should be a spur to investment and innovation (think domain names here); on the other, yet another all-too-unsurprising game of dominance.

Or maybe I'm all wet. In any event, I've written far more than I planned, and owe it to myself to finish my wine.

r