Knowledge Representation Pastor Brett Peterson Class 1 1

Acquisition of Knowledge Telling Reading Showing Thinking Observing Doing Journey of Discover CS 585 Knowledge Representation 2

Reading and Writing • The first means of storing knowledge was – making signs of some sort, pictographs or counting marking • A Great Step Forward was – the development of Writing and its corollary Reading CS 585 Knowledge Representation 3

Writing from Ancient Times … • proto-writing, i. e. pictographic communication from about 25, 000 B. C. • Sumerian Tablets with writing from 3300 B. C. • Egyptian Hieroglyphics 3100 B. C. • 1 st known alphabet Palestine 16 th 17 th century B. C. • Hammurabi c. 1792 B. C. • Cretan Linear B c. 1450 B. C. • Greek Alphabet c. 730 B. C. • c. 2 nd century B. C. paper invented in China CS 585 Knowledge Representation 4

The Emergence of Books Rosetta Stone From the Caves of 25, 000 B. C. to the Gutenberg Bible printed c. 1454 -55 A. D. handwritten codex scrolls of papyrus and the books of the Torah Gutenberg Bible CS 585 Knowledge Representation 5

Kinds of Reading 1 • Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren in their influential book, How to Read a Book distinguish 4 levels of Reading: – Basic Reading, i. e. what do the sentences say? – Inspectional Reading, i. e. learn about the surface of the book, systematical skimming answering questions like: • What is the book about? • What is the structure of the book? • What are its parts? CS 585 Knowledge Representation 6

Kinds of Reading 2 • The 2 deeper levels are reading are: – Analytical Reading, i. e. a thorough, complete good reading aimed preeminently on achieving understanding. At this level the Reader goes beyond, in Francis Bacon’s terms, tasting, the book to chewing and digesting it. – Syntopical Reading, i. e. comparative reading of numerous books on the same topic with the objective of constructing an analysis of the subject. CS 585 Knowledge Representation 7

How Does This All Work? n atio c i n u mm Co t c e r i D g Talkin Se g n i t i r w g n i e Knowledge Representation books, etc. CS 585 Knowledge Representation 8

Some Technical Apparatus and Rules • We will practice … or use the following terms – Epistemic Doubt, i. e. All Truth(s) will be considered 1) probably incomplete, 2) open for revision (We will probably struggle with exactly what it means to say something is TRUE!) – Account: a term used to represent the description of something as in “Give an ACCOUNT of …” – Move: a term referring to a step in a rational argument as “the next move is …” – Systemic Agnosticism: talk about God or other ultimate realities will be respectful and openminded CS 585 Knowledge Representation 9

The Hall of Heros • Knowledge is realized in the minds of men and women, so the History of Knowledge is the History of Man • Certain of these I will TERM our Patron Saints (people the Grand Poo. Bah thinks are important, your mileage may differ) -- the list will grow throughout the course • The First Ones Are – G. K. Chesterton, and – Charles S. Peirce CS 585 Knowledge Representation 10

Gilbert Keith Chesterton born 1874 and died 1936 • Journalist, Author, Poet, Artist … • Apologist for Life and Sanity Chesterton will pop up repeatedly with his particular wisdom. – Orthodoxy – The Everlasting Man – the Father Brown Mysteries – and many more. . . CS 585 Knowledge Representation 11

Chesterton Quotes "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid. " -- G. K. Chesterton CS 585 Knowledge Representation 12

Charles S. Peirce September 10, 1839 to April 19, 1914 By 1936 Alfred North Whitehead would describe America as the developing center of worthwhile philosophy, and identify Charles Peirce and William James as the founders of the American renaissance. "Of these men, " Whitehead said, "W. J. is the analogue to Plato, and C. P. to Aristotle. " • semiotics • existential graphs We will hear from Pierce on many occasions. http: //www. iupui. edu/~peirce/web/peirce/life. htm CS 585 Knowledge Representation 13

The Truth The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. -- Charles S. Peirce (emphasis added) http: //www-groups. dcs. st-andrews. ac. uk/~history/Quotations/Peirce_Charles. html CS 585 Knowledge Representation 14

The Fallacy of the Answer • Questions are the reality • It is rare that a question has only a single answer • Every answer must be caveated by the baggage it carries, the unspoken and unformulated assumptions which form its context, its frame of reference • Yet we implicitly teach our students to expect the contrary CS 585 Knowledge Representation 15

Elementary Note taking • How do we capture Knowledge for reuse in the simple environment of a Lecture? • Several Plausible Accounts – transcription — we copy down the words like a court stenographer and read them when we want to “replay” the lecture (no compaction!) – notes — we copy down the important ideas and review those when we want to refresh our understanding (presumably some compaction) – others … ex. making concept maps CS 585 Knowledge Representation 16

The Ubiquitous Character of STORY • The most powerful method of conveying knowledge is to tell a story – Myth: see work of Joseph Campbell for example – Parable: Who is my neighbor? – Epic: Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey • We are embarking on a journey which is a story, perhaps an epic, so it may be fitting to start with a great story teller CS 585 Knowledge Representation 17

Homer believed to have been born as early as 1100 BC or as late as 750 BC • traditional author of the Iliad and the Odessey • the foundation of education in ancient Greece, the national Epic or Myth used to teach what it was to be Greek CS 585 Knowledge Representation 18

Things are not always what they seem. . . CS 585 Knowledge Representation 19

Homer, an appreciation Somewhere along the Ionian coast opposite Crete and the islands was a town of some sort, probably of the sort that we should call a village or hamlet with a wall. It was called Ilion but it came to be called Troy, and the name will never perish from the earth. A poet who may have been a beggar and a ballad-monger, who may have been unable to read and write, and was described by tradition as blind, composed a poem about the Greeks going to war with this town to recover the most beautiful woman in the world. That the most beautiful woman in the world lived in that one little town sounds like a legend; that the most beautiful poem in the world was written by somebody who knew of nothing larger than such little towns is a historical fact. It is said that the poem came at the end of the period; that the primitive culture brought it forth in its decay; in which case one would like to have seen that culture in its prime. But anyhow it is true that this, which is our first poem, might very well be our last poem too. It might well be the last word as well as the first word spoken by man about his mortal lot, as seen by merely mortal vision. If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die. -- G. K. Chesterton, from The Everlasting Man CS 585 Knowledge Representation 20

Science and Belief A Visit with Peter Hodgson TAKE OUT YOUR NOTEBOOK OR PAPER

Peter Hodgson An Electronic Guest Peter Hodgson is a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, England, where he heads the Nuclear Physics Theoretical Group of the Nuclear Particle Physics Lab. He has written 10 books on nuclear physics, 300 research articles and many popular articles on theology and science. http: //www. catholicity. com/school/icu/c 02301. htm CS 585 Knowledge Representation 22

Where to Begin? • Traditional Oxford Advice — start at the beginning, go on until you reach the end, and then stop. • Where is the Beginning? – the Absolute Beginning – the Beginning of the Universe – the Beginning of Knowledge for each of us • Start with the Fundamental Question – How each individual learns? CS 585 Knowledge Representation 23

What Sort of Questions? • A Dichotomy between knowledge that is verifiable and well grounded, versus unverifiable fancy on the other • FACT versus FIF (Funny Internal Feelings) • A Crucial Question: What is Fundamental? – External Reality, i. e. Realism – the Mind, i. e. Cartesian or Kantian positivism CS 585 Knowledge Representation 24

Knowing • How we can begin to Know? CS 585 Knowledge Representation 25

The Epistemic Cycle • Babies interacting with their environment • Children are innate scientists • the way to learn about the world is to act on it and see what happens • the cycle of Guessing and Checking followed by an other cycle of Guessing and Checking is called The Epistemic Cycle CS 585 Knowledge Representation 26

Must There Be Innate Ideas? • Perhaps NOT given the Epistemic Cycle • Almost Any Idea, however wrong, can get the cycle started, and THEN • Starting from a variety of wrong places it will soon eliminate errors • We learn by interacting with the world – a stream of sense impressions CS 585 Knowledge Representation 27

The Baby Learns. . . • • • Particular Objects — the rattle other rattles, i. e. “rattles” as a Class things that look like rattles but are not the FORMATION of Concepts the DEVELOPMENT of Visual Knowledge and Language • Voyages of Discovery and Higher Levels of Abstraction CS 585 Knowledge Representation 28

The Tacit Supposition. . . • We Live in a REAL WORLD • the success of the Epistemic Cycle is selfvalidating • If there were no objective reality the cycle would not work! • SHARED IDEAS • Scientists are Natural and Instinctive Realists CS 585 Knowledge Representation 29

The Steps to Knowledge • STEP ONE — Recognition of Particular Facts – The recognition of individual facts is but the first step in knowledge, • STEP TWO — the General in the Particular – the second is the classification of facts, the recognition of the general in the particular. – This is a spontaneous unconscious act, a basic characteristic of human thinking. It is not an inference from sensations; it is the immediate grasping by the mind of a facet of reality. CS 585 Knowledge Representation 30

The Beginnings of Human History • Reconstructing the Life Style of Early Man • The caves of Lascaux, Altimira and other sites – Primitive Man was an ARTIST – Primitive Man was an ASTRONOMER – Primitive Man was both Priest and Scientist CS 585 Knowledge Representation 31

Early Civilization • • the African Savannah Numerous Ancient Peoples Sumerians (Gilgamesh) Egyptians CS 585 Knowledge Representation 32

The Greeks • the Art of Asking the Right Questions – Socrates • Great Achievement – the idea of Universal Causality – study by Rational Argument • Chaos or Teleology (Purpose) • the One and the Many • the Problem of Change CS 585 Knowledge Representation 33

Unchanging and Changing Substance • Thales (c 580 BC) — universal “stuff” is “WATER” • Anaximenes thought it was “AIR” • Heraclitus thought it was “FIRE” • Anaximander postulated four elements – – EARTH (solid) AIR (gas) FIRE (plasma) and WATER (liquid) CS 585 Knowledge Representation 34

Parmenides and Democritus • The One and The Many • The Problem of Change • Parmenides — the fundamental stuff must be unchangeable (the notion of permanent things) • Democritus and Aristotle, two answers – atoms moving in a void (Democritus) – the distinction between Act and Potency (Aristotle) CS 585 Knowledge Representation 35

Aristotle’s Four Causes • • Material — of what is it made, its matter? Formal — what is its form or pattern or essence? Efficient — how does it come to be? Final — what is its function, goal or purpose? CS 585 Knowledge Representation 36

Theories of Two Types • Essentialists — giving a TRUE account of reality • Descriptive — consequences that AGREE WITH EXPERIMENT CS 585 Knowledge Representation 37

The Cyclic Universe • the debilitating aspects of a world where everything has happened and will simply happen again • such beliefs still survive in Astrology CS 585 Knowledge Representation 38

Aristotle’s Teleology • His success as a Biologist may have been responsible for his failure as a Physicist • For all its glories, Greek science was stillborn; it never developed into a selfsustaining enterprise. CS 585 Knowledge Representation 39

WORKSHOP QUESTION: What are the fundamental ideas presented by Peter Hodgson in his talk?

Socrates born 469 BC and died 399 BC The unexamined life is not worth living -- SOCRATES • a seeker of truth Found guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates chooses • remembered for the love to obey the law rather than escape, Plato bore him as the hero and drinks the hemlock. of many of Plato’s Dialogues • First known practitioner of the Socratic Method, teaching by questioning • We learn by recollection of what is already known CS 585 Knowledge Representation http: //www. wsu. edu/~dee/GREECE/SOCRATES. HTM 41

The Character of Wisdom to know that we do not know He (Socrates) also questioned poets, but they could not even elucidate their poems to his satisfaction. After one such encounter: I reflected as I walked away, Well, I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know. -- SOCRATES http: //www. btinternet. com/~socratic/excerpt. htm CS 585 Knowledge Representation 42

Homework • Read “The Meno” by Plato and be prepared to discuss the Questions – What is Knowledge? – Where does Knowledge Come From? – How Do You Know? • Do an Inspectional Reading of Chapters 1 and 2 of Fensel’s Ontologies • Think about what kind of PROJECT would be right for you and prepare to share your thoughts in the WORKSHOP CS 585 Knowledge Representation 43

References • How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren, ISBN 0 -671 -21209 -5 Pbk (material excerpted from Chapter 2 The Levels of Reading) • The Everlasting Man by G. K. Chesterton • Audio Lecture from the Nature of Belief program by Peter Hodgson • Miscellaneous Web-sites as noted CS 585 Knowledge Representation 44