Thursday, November 17, 2005
Center of Excellence Proposal
à
Article in Datawarehouse.com on Semantic Technology
Roadmap à
Previous
comments on web service
execution environment
and ontology à [199] [200] [201]
( link to the Taos Discussion à [63] )
Professor Martin Terry,
Assistant Professor of Biology at Sul Ross University
you responded to
a note:
(My statement): the nature of language should no longer be a issue in philosophy.... there is adequate evidence for a science of language ... it is early
Response: You mean we should throw away all
our Wittgenstein books? That's a rather radical position, but I'm
willing to listen.
(My statement): Biology should play an important part in the new work, if I am to go to Sul Ross..
Response: I should hope so. At the moment,
teaching the first-year students who are required to take general botany is a
daunting task, simply because most of them are convinced that they don't want
to be there, and the subject matter as traditionally
presented does not leave much wiggle room for the intercalation of
intellectual brain candy.
Of course the history of the philosophy of language needs to be taught
as part of a liberal education.
However, there is an academic entrenchment around the notion that there
can be no theory of language. A similar
academic entrenchment forced the father of biomathematics, N. Rashevsky, to
abandon a department of theoretical biology at University of Chicago in the
early 1960s. One of the members of that
department was Robert Rosen, whose work on “anticipatory systems” and category
theory create part of the foundation of the study of ontological models of
living systems.
Tom Adi’s work is often criticized based on the notion that no one may
propose a theory of language. He can
speak to this himself if he wishes. Or
Drs Ballard or Sowa can make a comment.
The reading of Adi’s theory is made available at the third link below.
White Paper on Incident Information Orb
Architecture (IIOA) à
Types of Ontology for Crisis
Management à
Adi Structural Ontology Part I
à
Cubicon language description
à
The other links are other aspects of the developing science of knowledge systems.
The curricular issue, regarding computer science and mathematics, that I wish to address is detailed at:
The BCNGroup foundation is working on the scheduling of a conference on the possible development of an “active knowledge base” for studies of the Big Bend land and culture.
Tom Adi’s work is critical to this possible development, as his theory allows one to see how text, in English and Mexican language, can to parsed, using computer algorithms, to produce a “semantic cover” of the topics that should be in the active knowledge base. The foundation has long wished for a project that would combine a linguistic pre-processor from Amnon Meyers, a letter substructure parser and the Adi ontology, and the Orb (Ontology referential base) from myself.
A side project is possible, one that develops a small active knowledge base using special texts from the Nagual literatures. This knowledge base should be as archeologically sound as possible, and be available to express conjectures about Nagual culture. The availability of such an active knowledge base of this type for academic research would make the freshman course work at Sul Ross have a deeper and more intellectually satisfying appeal. The freshman botany class should be able to anticipate their individual participation in field studies of native botanic presences, and to course work on the cultural impact of such things as the yucca roots.
This freshman class should anticipate chemistry courses as well as courses on the application of new technologies on cultivating nutraceutical products from indigenous species of plants.
Courses of study at Sul Ross draw excellent students because there are courses of study that reflect the unique opportunities of the region. As Dean, or as Chair, I would actively encourage faculty to restructure the curriculums so that the University can be distinguished in the same way as the current Center for Big Bend Studies is distinguished.