Philippe AMELINE wrote: > Hi Mikael, > > I would be very sorry to have this conversation become too formal or > appear as some criticism. I am much willing to learn, and I think > that, as a master thesis supervisor, you teach Mattias not just to be > happy with "established concepts" but to have a push on it and check > if it is a stone basement or just a theater set. > > My questions : "are you certain that a structure can host any > terminology", "what is the discourse complexity level you can address" > are of the "have a push on it" kind. > > My feeling is that the good order to ask questions (and answer it) is : > Why do you want to communicate ? > What discourse complexity level can allow to address these needs ? > What discourse representation technology fits these "required language" ? I think it is problematic to think only in terms of linguistic discourse; we need to think in terms of conceptual truths as well. Infection with plasmodium parasite leads to malaria, no matter what language it is written in; certain kinds of polyps in the colon increase the risk of bowel cancer, no matter what language. "Ontologies of reaility" as I call them should be (more or less) linguistically independent. The problem is to agree on one or more good quality ones. Then archetypes have something to work with. Unfortunately, I fear that the Snomed-ct developers are losing sight of what a good terminology is and trying to jam many incorrect concepts into it. > > So, you may already have answered questions 1 and 2, and that it is > possible to answer Q3 with a discourse structure that can host any > existing terminology. > But at large, I don't agree that such a concept can address any answer > to questions 1 and 2. My personal opinion is even that, as a bottom-up > strategy, it constraints the system to a very specific range of > environments. > > By the way, the term "terminology" itself would demand to be made more > accurate. It is often used to describe coding systems, > classifications, dictionaries, standardized vocabularies, ontologies... > All these components can actually appear somewhere in a discourse > structure, but at a specific place ! exactly > One can say, for example : "The patient complains from a terrible > abdominal pain 2 hours after meal. We can classify it as D01 in ICPC" > But not : "The patient complains from a terrible (D01 in ICPC) 2 hours > after meal." this is a problem of to much pre-coordination....
- thomas
