Translating between different vocabularies

Just to start off here, I'd like to thank @bobhaugen for bringing up this important question of common vocabularies, which, of course, for things to work together, includes the concepts that are expressed with the terms of the vocabularies.

Although we could have a great discussion in the abstract about the principles behind this kind of vocabulary translation (and indeed, how we might best govern vocabularies in general) my guess is that people will relate better to particular examples of variant vocabularies that need translation in order for apps to communicate with each other.

I'd welcome any examples. I'm sure Bob has examples, and I'd love to consider these, but even more, to broaden the discussion out, it would be great to know if anyone else can think of this kind of example. I'd bet that @gregorycassel has some good ones — who else has some, that I might not be aware of?

For sure, it may not be easy to think in this way if there's not been a reason to think along these lines before. So I, for one, would offer anyone a one-to-one discussion to explore what we might be talking about here.

My main recent work has been on Modular Organization Terminology, which is a vocabulary in precisely the ways (I think) that you and Bob are using the term.

In fact, the MOT entry for terminology includes this section:

Note: "Vocabulary" is a closely related and more generic term. "Terminology" seems more accurate to me for most formal organizational goals, but "vocabulary" seems more widely-used and clearly legible to diverse audiences.

I may or may not switch to using "vocabulary" as my root term for this repository. (Feedback welcome!)

MOT is closely related to my deep interest and occasional small contributions to Value Flows. By contrast, MOT is much broader in its intentions. That makes it more ambitious in some ways and less ambitious (and, certainly, less strict) in others.

If anyone's significantly interested in MOT (and its endless development), the front page/ README file serves as a concise "about this repository" page.

replying to your earlier point, @gregorycassel, while the work you've done on MOT is great, the point I hear @bobhaugen making is about variant vocabularies that different people have already constructed covering similar ground. It is sometimes quite hard, in my experience, to do this kind of translation. Similarly difficult to the challenges of real natural language translation, where meanings may overlap rather than coinciding. So for your MOT, are there (a) any other schemes that attempt to cover similar ground, or (b) when you were putting together MOT, were there variant schemes that you attempted to harmonize in the creation of MOT?

It's hard to describe how distinctive and inclusive I perceive my goals with Modular Organization Terminology to be. I'll make a little effort here. Anyway, sharing MOT is more of an FYI than an RFC right now. Certainly it's not (yet) a request for anyone to directly help develop MOT, or to interact with it in any specific way(s).

Other people and groups, including some with extensive academic and professional clout, have written vocabularies which cover much of MOT's vast conceptual ground. Some wikis, including wikipedia itself, have developed descriptive language in more obviously open and inclusive ways. However, I see my efforts so far as distinctive in one complex way. I briefly indicate it in MOT's README file:

These human-centered terms intentionally relate mental, social and physical experiences. One of my fundamental goals here is to help facilitate more effective and consistent descriptions of such relationships.

I'm trying to adapt terminology for mental, social and physical experiences into a unified modular design language. In a way, it's a sort of grand unified philosophical theory for potential personal and social experiences. In a way, it's the culmination (so far) of my decades of philosophical inquiry.

My goals are quite broadly cooperative. I'll work with any willing and constructively engaging participants to improve MOT and to relate it helpfully to other vocabularies. Also, I'll intentionally put MOT's master branch in the public domain-- whenever it feels sufficiently developed and useful for me to responsibly do that. However, I publish solo right now because I have to start getting this stuff out there (and keep developing it) in a form which sustains my personal creative agency.

BTW, public domain licensing may become a higher priority soon, if any people grow interested but worry about my intentions. For now though, I'm entirely swamped with basic infrastructural work. Really, I'd rather work on MOT -- and urgent related projects, such as rewriting all of Peer-to-Peer Digital Networking and Agreement Based Governance in simpler shorter forms, using MOT links-- than talk about it. In fact, I consider it terribly unfortunate that I haven't yet been able to focus on a simpler version of P2PDN which will better display how empowering its concepts can be. Sharing the power of those concepts is my number one social goal.

Anyway, directly addressing your specific questions:

a. There are no vocabularies I know which try to cover as much conceptual ground, although Francis Heylighen came close (many years ago) with Principia Cybernetica and I believe that he still works in a similar action-based philosophical context.

b. No, frankly I don't have time to systematically consider and integrate other existing schema. However I do broadly survey existing definitions of terms which I add to MOT, regardless of the sources of those definitions. (I pay special attention to definitions in commonly used professional and academic networks.)

@bobhaugen makes a good point in this topic about the need to represent concepts in different human languages. I'm well aware of my privilege in international communications as a native English speaker. I'm afraid that it currently makes sense to go along with the frequent default towards using English in international contexts, because IMO we're in a big rush to develop sustainable global culture with shared language(s).... however, in the long term, I think we can and should transcend that bias and privilege.

Thanks @gregorycassel for highlighting the multilingual point of @bobhaugen. Over here (still just) in Europe it tends to be more mainstream. As far as I've been aware, it's one of those things where a little attention at the information architecture stage makes it a whole lot easier to make terminology vocabularies multilingual. It can be a real pain if not thought of at the start.

sounds like my own obsessive work around the p2p wiki

haha, yes it requires a lot of persistence to say the least....

I have so much sympathy with @gregorycassel here. Sometimes there simply aren't any schemas that are broad enough to represent the breadth of thinking that is needed — particularly in this vast endeavour of building a socio-technical ecosystem. And even when one limits one's scope, as with @lynnfoster and @bobhaugen, I can imagine it needing sharp focus; and the empathic ability to look at one's subject matter from different viewpoints and different perspectives.

Then, how are we do decide whether or not (or when) to adopt the kind of framework like Greg's MOT, when there are no direct competitors? To me, it's to do with what the purposes — the results — of the framework are. If a framework enables people to understand each other better, as peers, I'd say it is worthy. For me, that's one of the key results. And then there is always room for improvement. A framework can help understanding in some areas better, in other areas less well. The latter areas have room for improvement.

Remembering that understanding is not a direct result of having a better conceptual framework. First, one has to get people to buy into the framework, and that can come partly from demonstrating how the framework represents the issues that those people really care about, in a way that those people can relate to. Which I imagine Greg is well into.

If people want to start developing or identifying a shared vocabulary, I'd recommend creating a shared space for definitions/descriptions which are accepted (if not necessarily preferred!) by all active participants. Perhaps that could be pursued in a github repository, just as Value Flows and MOT have been developed in github.

I wouldn't suggest that anyone directly adopt my personal MOT repository as a shared starting point. However, it'd be easy to copy and (if wanted) revise any specific entries in MOT to a shared space.

Regardless of how much in MOT is or isn't adapted elsewhere: if other people like the term "Modular Organization Terminology" or "Modular Organization Vocabulary", I'd be happy to use that as the name of a shared space, and to rename my personal version of it slightly to distinguish it.

On a purely technical level, of course, a shared space would need to be governed/managed by one or more specific administrators. I think it'd be good for that to include three or more people. I'd be quite willing to be one of them. I wouldn't perceive it as important for me to be one of them.

BTW Value Flows has already devoted more time and thought to some specific formal terms than I have, so I'd look directly to VF for terms too.

If people want to start developing or identifying a shared vocabulary, I'd recommend creating a shared space for definitions/descriptions

I appreciate the thought @gregorycassel . But I think it might be better to use a set of domain specific vocabularies, and keep them separate. It is more than enough work to develop and maintain one domain. :) It is also very easy to use more than one vocabulary at a time, should you need to address more than one domain in your software conversations, which everyone does, at least in linked open data, which has layer upon layer of vocabularies.

In general, my thinking is trending the opposite direction as yours, that it will be very difficult to try to come to agreement on a vocabulary for the OAE, either in general or even in one domain, and that we will be better off making good use of the vocabulary translators in the meantime. Gradually, I think there could be more convergence as we use the different vocabularies to create interoperability in practice, and learn from each other. And this is from a person who has made VF my primary focus for at least the last 2 or 3 years. :)

It fits with my general feeling that we are in one of those "let 1000 flowers bloom" phases, and it is more important to get some actual interoperability going than to strive for higher quality or more agreement of the parts. If we can quickly agree on some things (and there will be some minimum we do need to agree on), and work around other things so as to not slow ourselves down, I think that is a good way to proceed in this phase. As our knowledge increases, we can move towards more unification. Although the opposing pull of new technology and new experiments will always be there too, so I think it's good to be flexible and practical.

Of course, I could be wrong.

It is also very easy to use more than one vocabulary at a time, should you need to address more than one domain in your software conversations, which everyone does, at least in linked open data, which has layer upon layer of vocabularies.

That's reasonable, yes. (Though I'm not personally oriented towards developing or interrelating a lot of separate vocabularies.)

In general, my thinking is trending the opposite direction as yours, that it will be very difficult to try to come to agreement on a vocabulary for the OAE, either in general or even in one domain, and that we will be better off making good use of the vocabulary translators in the meantime.

I didn't mean to imply that I think it'll be easy (or even possible) for active participants to agree to a specific vocabulary for OAE. I was just following Simon's train of thought in my last comment.

I don't favor organizations with strict dependencies and unitary or hierarchical structures. I.e. I'd prefer for OAE to focus on whatever exactly its goals are, and for other goals to be related to OAE through "intercommunity" networking. (And, it probably makes sense for a technical vocabulary to be "merely" a related goal, instead of an OAE goal per se.)

it probably makes sense for a technical vocabulary to be "merely" a related goal, instead of an OAE goal per se.)

Depends on your definition of OAE and its goals. If the goal is open apps that can work together as a technical ecosystem, then from our first set of OAE conversations til the most recent (see the Tech Arch thread) some degree or set of common vocabularies is a good way to do it. If we want these apps to be creatable independently by different people and organizations, then it might be necessary.

If your definition of OAE is a group of organizations and people, then it doesn't matter, but then we'll still need a set of open apps that can work together, so all this stuff eats its own tail.

dear friends,

I'm very happy with the OAE developments and any possibility to do CTA like convergence work,

However, I am really overwhelmed and can't monitor the detailed discussions you are having,

I will confer regularly with Bob to hear about the progress,

Michel