“Ontology” as such is supposed to incorporate really disparate things, but, still, this is a really curious list—a library of “OWL ontologies,” where the acronym OWL, according to the dyslexics at the World Wide Consortium Web (W2CW, a/k/a, the W3C), stands for “Web Ontology Language.” It’s easy to look at a list like that and vaguely think “oh, an early, random smattering of everything,” but it’s much more determined than that. With a few exceptions (e.g., “transcendental states of consciousness experienced by practitioners of bhakti-yoga,” “named things…in the New Testament,” and “tourism”), it neatly recaps the main disciplinary influences that shaped cybernetic ideas about “information”: mathematics, geometry, chemistry, etc, OT1H; and biology, kinship, education, health, etc, OT0H. So: if you like Bateson, it’s early; if you don’t, it’s folly.
I found this through a pointer to a monetary ontology at Financial Cryptography:
Monetary_ontology_0.1d.zip: A zipped Protégé project of an ontology for currency creation and use. Also contains an “owl”. The objective is an active description of all forms of ”money” from barter to clearing systems, from precious metal coinage to debt-based fiat. It is oriented towards designers of payment systems and community currency systems. Here is a preview GIF image! First begun 2008/05/04 and last updated 2008/05/12. v0.0 Contributed by Martin “Hasan” Bramwell
Anyone who thinks he or she has even a rough grip on what money is or how it works should guess again—according to Martin “Hasan” Bramwell. But, then, he puts designers of payment systems and community currency systems in the same breath. YMMV.
Julian Dibbell’s “Dead medium: Metal Money” (repr. in nettime, ZKP5, “Subjects” chapter) is an easier read.
Comments
5 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.A friend of mine pointed out to me that you had decided to “critique” my efforts, so I have come to take a look. The point of rigorous ontologies is focus rational argument on highly specific questions, so I came hoping to meet an interlocutor able to help me sharpen my own thinking. Instead I find empty jeering. I mean — I’d like to rebut your argument, but — you haven’t said anything.
What’s the point?
Martin “Hasan” Bramwell
Thanks for taking the time to respond; but I don’t completely understand. You were prepared to rebut an argument only to find that there isn’t one, and on that basis concluded that “YMMV”—a venerable internet tradition suggesting that some readers may come to different conclusions—is “jeering.” It’s not, at all.
Well, you appear to approve neither of my non-conformance to general assumptions about money nor the legitimacy of discovering the commonalities between payment systems and community currency systems. Looking at it again, there’s no telling whether you approve or disapprove. I took “Your Mileage May Vary” to mean — “take this rubbish with a *large* grain of salt”. If your intent was otherwise, then I’m very sorry.
Trying to take people outside their cookie cutter notions about money has often ended up with me being branded as a kook, so perhaps I’m at the point of hearing sneering even when it’s not there.
I was learning Protege evenings and weekends and had to move on to other things after about a week. I had hoped to engage the interest of a Protege expert, but it never happened. So the thing has been sitting there more or less orphaned for nine months now.
Do you understand what I’m trying to do? Can you contribute?
It’d be a bit premature to say I understand what you’re trying to (whenever someone says “I know exactly what you mean!”, reach for your revolver); and even less than a Protege expert, I’m a Protege ignoramus—so I’m sure I’d be useless in that regard. But, having said that, an ontology of money is very interesting and, on its face, far from kooky.
Rubbishing your work definitely wasn’t my intent, but you needn’t apologize. Too many blogs consist entirely of opinions, so this one’s partly an experiment in being a bit mandarin&mdashnot hard at all to see how that could misread.
Now I feel like a paranoid schizophrenic for taking you the wrong way. ¡Duh!
Perhaps you can set up a YouTube style “stars” system like, “Worth checking out? ***” (3 stars)
b.t.w Did you know, “Paranoid schizophrenics have twice the enemies!” :-)