Digitalizing Uncertain Information

TL;DR

This paper explores developing an ontology-based digital form to represent uncertain information, aiming to enhance digital maturity in managing uncertainty through formalized, expressive ontological frameworks.

Contribution

It introduces an extension of extensional ontologies with a Lewisian approach to formalize uncertainty suitable for computational applications.

Findings

Extended BORO ontology with Lewisian uncertainty formalization

Demonstrated expressiveness for handling digital uncertainty challenges

Outlined pathway from basic to advanced digital maturity in uncertainty management

Abstract

The paper sketches some initial results from an ongoing project to develop an ontology-based digital form for representing uncertain information. We frame this work as a journey from lower to higher levels of digital maturity across a technology divide. The paper first sets a baseline by describing the basic challenges any project dealing with digital uncertainty faces. It then describes how the project is facing them. It shows firstly how an extensional ontology (such as the BORO Foundational Ontology or the Information Exchange Standard) can be extended with a Lewisian counterpart approach to formalizing uncertainty that is adapted to computing. And then it shows how this is expressive enough to handle the challenges. Keywords: actuality, BORO Foundational Ontology, counterpart, Information Exchange Standard, informational uncertainty, my doxastic actualities, two-dimensional semantics.