Ontology Commoning

Though it might not be obvious here, there is a lot of ongoing activity in the hyperknowledge conceptual universe. Among other things, I am working on a prototype of what I described earlier as concept unification/distinction (with a bit of epistemic federation thrown in.) The point is to have a record of the multiple ways that a certain concept is defined, and how those definitions are related both in terms of a common concept lattice, and in the individual and collective evolution of the concept.

I proposed to lay this first brick of architecture in the concept of the ongoing Collabathon of the Collaborative Technology Alliance. Here is the original proposal and post. In the course of the Collabathon, I am meeting a host of other wonderful projects, and have started a close collaboration with Simon Grant on his own proposal of ontology commoning. He is interested in the human process of alignment, including psychological dimensions that I had set aside to focus on the more formal dimensions. Thinking with him on this issue is incredibly helpful. Here is a first informal piece we wrote together on the commoning process.

In other notes: I want to thank Daniel Norman for considerable time spent thinking about the nature of concepts. My thinking on SenseCraft as a parallel project has evolved: I now realize it is a great opportunity to get people to learn to identify epistemic patterns. More on this in another piece. I am also beginning new pieces on concept composition, still extremely tentative.