Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Stefan Dietze a , Vlad Tanasescu b a Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, s.dietze@open.ac.uk. b Cultures of Legibility project, School of Arts, The University of Edinburgh, vlad.tanasescu@ed.ac.uk.

Meaning – Similarity - Interoperability <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Color&quot;> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;PhysicalQuality&quot;/> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> <Color rdf:ID=&quot;Lilac&quot;/> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Colour&quot;> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Quality&quot;/> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> <Colour rdf:ID=&quot;Purple&quot;/> ? Symbol grounding problem: Ontological symbols lack meaningful grounding in reality (or cognitive dimensions) Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK

Symbol grounding problem:

Ontological symbols lack meaningful grounding in reality (or cognitive dimensions)

Meaning – Similarity - Interoperability <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Color&quot;> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;PhysicalQuality&quot;/> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> <Color rdf:ID=&quot;Lilac&quot;/> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Colour&quot;> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Quality&quot;/> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> <Colour rdf:ID=&quot;Purple&quot;/> Symbol grounding problem: Ontological symbols lack meaningful grounding in reality (or cognitive dimensions) Reasoning about similarity between symbols difficult Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK ?

Symbol grounding problem:

Ontological symbols lack meaningful grounding in reality (or cognitive dimensions)

Reasoning about similarity between symbols difficult

Meaning – Similarity - Interoperability <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Color&quot;> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;PhysicalQuality&quot;/> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> <Color rdf:ID=&quot;Lilac&quot;/> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Colour&quot;> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Class rdf:ID=&quot;Quality&quot;/> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> <Colour rdf:ID=&quot;Purple&quot;/> linguistic similarity? linguistic similarity? structural similarity? Symbol grounding problem: Ontological symbols lack meaningful grounding in reality (or cognitive dimensions) Reasoning about similarity between symbols difficult Ontology interoperability needs to be based on (a) manual mappings or (b) linguistic or structural similarities (costly and error-prone) Need for grounded symbols allowing for implicit similarity representations Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK

Symbol grounding problem:

Ontological symbols lack meaningful grounding in reality (or cognitive dimensions)

Reasoning about similarity between symbols difficult

Ontology interoperability needs to be based on (a) manual mappings or (b) linguistic or structural similarities (costly and error-prone)

Need for grounded symbols allowing for implicit similarity representations

Meaning – Similarity - Interoperability Two approaches to more meaningful symbols… … based on grounding ontologies in: Conceptual Spaces (b) Processual Spacetime Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK car user1 user2 user3 wheels wheel travel vehicle

Two approaches to more meaningful symbols…

… based on grounding ontologies in:

Conceptual Spaces (b) Processual Spacetime

Grounding ontologies in Conceptual Spaces Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Enhancing ontologies through CS -based representations (through CS ontology) Multiple CS (each representing one concept C in one ontology O ), Instances I of C represented as members M in CS .

Enhancing ontologies through CS -based representations (through CS ontology)

Multiple CS (each representing one concept C in one ontology O ),

Instances I of C represented as members M in CS .

Grounding ontologies in Conceptual Spaces Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Enhancing ontologies through CS -based representations (through CS ontology) Multiple CS (each representing one concept C in one ontology O ), Instances I of C represented as members M in CS . Similarity-computation between instances across ontologies by means of spatial distances Requires common agreement at concept (i.e. CS) level … … common case due to (a) usage of upper-level ontologies or (b) usage of ontologies within (virtual) organisations.

Enhancing ontologies through CS -based representations (through CS ontology)

Multiple CS (each representing one concept C in one ontology O ),

Instances I of C represented as members M in CS .

Similarity-computation between instances across ontologies by means of spatial distances

Requires common agreement at concept (i.e. CS) level …

… common case due to (a) usage of upper-level ontologies or (b) usage of ontologies within (virtual) organisations.

Grounding ontologies in Conceptual Spaces Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Several applications utilising CS-based groundings for: Ontology interoperability

Several applications utilising CS-based groundings for:

Ontology interoperability

Grounding ontologies in Conceptual Spaces Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Several applications utilising CS-based groundings for: Ontology interoperability Semantic Web Service discovery / interoperability

Several applications utilising CS-based groundings for:

Ontology interoperability

Semantic Web Service discovery / interoperability

Grounding ontologies in Conceptual Spaces Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Several applications utilising CS-based groundings for: Ontology interoperability Semantic Web Service discovery / interoperability Bridging between sensor data and symbolic ontologies

Several applications utilising CS-based groundings for:

Ontology interoperability

Semantic Web Service discovery / interoperability

Bridging between sensor data and symbolic ontologies

Grounding ontologies in Processual Spacetime I Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Processual spacetime : Extreme Tagging Systems (ETS) : Instances considered as Processes in space and time rather than Things . Concepts as abstract process occurrences, i.e. probabilities that a process has a given set of characteristics. Copresence or cooccurrence relations: indicator of a significant probability that entities occur in the same spacetime region. E.g. `university’ and `campus’. Entities are the result of discrimination (Harnad 1990), they are differences . Collaborative tagging systems provide an appropriate model for descriptive discrimination. Extreme Tagging Systems (ETS), or Tagging the Tags, provides an appropriate model for spatiotemporal process exploration. How? car user1 user2 user3 wheels wheel travel vehicle

Instances considered as Processes in space and time rather than Things .

Concepts as abstract process occurrences, i.e. probabilities that a process has a given set of characteristics.

Copresence or cooccurrence relations: indicator of a significant probability that entities occur in the same spacetime region. E.g. `university’ and `campus’.

Entities are the result of discrimination (Harnad 1990), they are differences .

Collaborative tagging systems provide an appropriate model for descriptive discrimination.

Extreme Tagging Systems (ETS), or Tagging the Tags, provides an appropriate model for spatiotemporal process exploration. How?

Grounding ontologies in Processual Spacetime II We adopt an associative network model in which a limited number of mental relations can be used to describe the association processes: Co-occurrence : significant probability of co-presence of the two elements in a region of spacetime. E.g. ‘car’ and ‘wheels’. Similarity : the concepts appear similar. E.g. ‘pub’ and ‘bar’. Cause-effect : causal relation. E.g. ‘weapon’ and ‘death’ … Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK Application: in the Cultures of Legibility project, interview data about places and itineraries is projected on an ETS for automatic inference

Co-occurrence : significant probability of co-presence of the two elements in a region of spacetime. E.g. ‘car’ and ‘wheels’.

Similarity : the concepts appear similar. E.g. ‘pub’ and ‘bar’.

Cause-effect : causal relation. E.g. ‘weapon’ and ‘death’

…

Application: in the Cultures of Legibility project, interview data about places and itineraries is projected on an ETS for automatic inference

Stefan Dietze & Vlad Tanasescu - Spatial Groundings for Meaningful Symbols Workshop on Matching and Meaning, AISB, April 9th 2009, Edinburgh, UK More during the poster session… … or via: [ http://people.kmi.open.ac.uk/dietze ] [ http://archipelagos.eu (soon) ]