Philippe AMELINE wrote: > Hi, Karsten and Christian, > > Nice "brain pingpong" match ;o) > > Don't you think that your vision depends on the feeling you get and > the tools you are familiar with ?
I have to admit to thinking more like Philippe, even though I recognise that containment hierarchies are both a very powerful abstraction mechanism, but also a very common feature of the real world. But in a pragmatic sense I believe that we should develop languages or approaches that match the problem at hand. The openEHR reference model and the ADL language are both hierarchical in nature, but also support semantically meaningful cross-linking. As Philippe will tell you, trees (hierarchies) are the key structure of the data in the Odyssee system...but on their own they are not everything. Philippe is also right about poly-hierarchies - it is why terminologies like snomed have emerged (we will stay away from saying whether they did a good job, but at least they recognise the need for multiple classification axes). In general, we tend to end up with semantic networks full of predicates to represent knowledge (about real things), because there is not only one way to analyse the real world. - thomas > > In a pure object oriented model, dealing with hierarchies of object is > natural. > > However when it comes to knowledge management, it is more natural to > shift to predicates, for example semantic networks. > Because it is usually not possible to define THE hierarchy : to keep > on with the brain, you may succed in building an anatomical hierarchy, > but when you will consider brain functions or brain diseases, you will > have to build new hierarchies. All this hierarchical trees are > inter-connected, and you have better replacing "hierarchical traits" > with "named traits" (ie predicates). > > I don't know if all this is relevant with openEHR ? (I mean does a > system need to mimic what it should manage) > > Regards > > Philippe > >> > physical brain == carrier of knowledge == neurons, synapses etc. == >> real world >> But they are not interconnected in a hierarchy only, to the >> best of my knowledge. >> >> > The mind knows about itself and its physical carrier, the brain. >> But the >> > functioning of the brain has nothing to do with the abstract concepts >> > build within it. >> I tend to think that Nature had no abstract concepts >> "in mind" when "building" the brain. Rather abstract concepts >> are what we with our limited ability to comprehend use to >> reduce complex things to something we *can* understand, no ? >> Eg. the brain simply IS but we use abstract concepts to >> *describe* what we understand of it. Unless you want to reduce >> those abstract concepts to Laws of Nature - which have nothing >> much to do with why or whether the brain is internally connected >> hierarchially or web-like. >> >> Karsten >> -- >> GPG key ID E4071346 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net >> E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346 >> - >> If you have any questions about using this list, >> please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org > > > - > If you have any questions about using this list, > please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org > > -- ___________________________________________________________________________________ CTO Ocean Informatics (http://www.OceanInformatics.biz) Hon. Research Fellow, University College London openEHR (http://www.openEHR.org) Archetypes (http://www.oceaninformatics.biz/adl.html) Community Informatics (http://www.deepthought.com.au/ci/rii/Output/mainTOC.html) - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org
