computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

, a weak ontology is an

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

that is not sufficiently rigorous to allow software to infer new facts without intervention by humans (the end users of the software system). In other words, it does not contain sufficient literal information. By this standard – which evolved as

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

methods became more sophisticated, and computers were used to model high human impact decisions – most

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

s use weak ontologies. A weak ontology is adequate for many purposes, including

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

, where one teaches a set of distinctions and tries to induce the power to make those distinctions in the student. Stronger ontologies only tend to evolve as the weaker ones prove deficient. This phenomenon of ontology becoming stronger over time parallels observations in

folk taxonomy A folk taxonomy is a vernacular name, naming system, as distinct from Taxonomy (general), scientific taxonomy. Folk biological classification is the way people traditionally describe and organize the world around them, typically making generous us ...

about

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

: as a society practices more

labour specialization The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (Departmentalization, specialisation). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialis ...

, it tends to become intolerant of confusions and mixed metaphors, and sorts them into formal

profession A profession is a field of Work (human activity), work that has been successfully professionalized. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, professionals, who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are ...

s or practices. Ultimately, these are expected to reason about them in common, with mathematics, especially

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

and

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

, as the common ground. On the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

folksonomy Folksonomy is a classification system in which end users apply public tags to online items, typically to make those items easier for themselves or others to find later. Over time, this can give rise to a classification system based on those tag ...

in the form of tag schemas and

typed link A link relation is a descriptive attribute attached to a hyperlink in order to define the type of the link, or the relationship between the source and destination resources. The attribute can be used by automated systems, or can be presented to a ...

s has tended to evolve slowly in a variety of forums, and then be standardized in such schemes as

microformats Microformats (μF) are predefined HTML markup (like HTML classes) created to serve as descriptive and consistent metadata about HTML element, elements, designating them as representing a certain type of data (such as address book, contact info ...

as more and more forums agree. These weak ontology constructs only become strong in response to growing demands for a more powerful form of

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

than is possible with

keyword Keyword may refer to: Computing * Index term, a term used as a keyword to documents in an information system such as a catalog or a search engine * Keyword (Internet search), a word or phrase typically used by bloggers or online content creator to ...

ing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weak Ontology Ontology (information science)