This is the title of a powerful treatise written by Clay Shirky, in which he strives to "convince you that a lot of what we think we know about categorization is wrong." Much thanks to David Weinberger's blog www.everythingismiscellaneous.com for pointing out this article. The take home message is quite similar to some of the "Beyond Categories" ideas I've tried to promulgate in my meager attempt to understand why progress in computer vision has reached a standstill. For anybody interested in understanding the limitations of classical systems of categorization, this article is a worth a read.
I think this Shirky guy got the whole idea of ontology wrong. Definitions, definitions, definitions.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think is a more appropriate definition of ontology?
ReplyDeleteI believe he is using ontology as it pertains to information science in which case he seems correct to me.
ReplyDeleteA good description of what is an ontology and how it pertains to AI/Robotics can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html