Open policy ontology: Difference between revisions
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== Rationale == | == Rationale == | ||
James Fishkin, a key proponent of deliberate democracy, describes two approaches to public opinion, raw vs. refined: what people actually think vs. what their opinion would be after it has been tested by the consideration of competing arguments and information coscientiously offered by others who hold contrasting views. Political process can be seen as wether a filter or a mirror. The filter creates counterfactual but deliberative representations of public opinion. The mirror offers a picture of public opinion just as it is, even if it is debilitated or inattentive. The conflicting images suggest a hard choice between the ''reflective'' opinion of the filter and the ''reflected'' opinion of the mirror.<ref name="fishkin2011">James Fishkin. (2011) When the people speak. Democratic deliberation and public consultancy. Publisher: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199604432</ref> | |||
It is only through the deliberations of a small face-to-face representative body that one can arrive at the "cool and deliberate sense of the community" (James Madison, Federalist No 63). ... A key desideratum in the Founders' project of constitutional design was the creation of conditions where the formulation and expression of deliberative public opinion would be possible.<ref name="fishkin2011"/> A smallish group of randomly selected people are likely to act as a filter, while a referendum would act as a mirror. E.g. James Madison actively designed governance structures that would enable the formation of refined public opinion in the national US policy. The electorate was such a construct, designed to enable informed argumentation about president candidates. However, this role has completely disappeared, as nowadays the outcome of the electoral vote is known as soon as the composition of the electorate is known. | |||
Shared understanding follows these lines of reasoning and aims to produce a filtered outcome of informed argumentation. However, the major difference is that the filtering process does not aim to produce a decision, but a comprehensive description of shared understanding with all relevant points and disagreements. This written description enables other people to learn and form their own opinions of the matter, and thus help in other similar decision situations. Although producing such a description may be time-consuming and labourious, re-usability of the information makes it worth the effort. | |||
== See also == | == See also == | ||
* [[Voting age]] | |||
* [[Shared undestanding]] | |||
* [[:op_fi:Yhtäköyttä-hankkeen loppuraportti]] | |||
* [[Structure of shared understanding]] | |||
* Other examples of shared understanding ([[:op_fi:Jaetun ymmärryksen menetelmä]] in Finnish): | |||
** [[:op_fi:Keskipitkän aikavälin ilmastopolitiikan suunnitelma]], | |||
** [[:op_fi:Energiarenessanssi]], | |||
** [[:op_fi:Pietarsaaren rokotuskeskustelu]] |
Revision as of 13:38, 9 April 2017
Moderator:Jouni (see all) |
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The structure of shared understanding describes the information structures that are needed to document shared understanding of a complex decision situation.
Question
What information structures and information tools are needed to document shared understanding in such a way that
- it can be operationalised and managed and used for automatic inferences by a computer,
- it can systematically organise information objects used in open assessment, such as variables, statements,
- can represent each participant's views systematically as a part of the whole even if people disagree,
- it is intuitive enough to be used by non-experts?
Answer
Shared understanding aims at producing a description of different views, opinions, and facts related to a specific topic such as a decision process. The structure of shared understanding describes the information structures that are needed to document shared understanding of a complex decision situation. The purpose of the structure is to help people identify hidden premises, beliefs, and values and explicate possible discrepancies. This is expected to produce better understanding among participants.
The basic structure of a shared understanding is a network of items and relations between then. Items and relations are collectively called things. Each item is typically of one of the types mentioned below. The first three types are knowledge crystals with the structure question-answer-rational. They are used in open assessments.
- Assessment describes a decision situation and typically provides relevant information to decision makers before the decision is made. It is about the knowledge work for decision support.
- Variable describes a real-world topic that is relevant for the decision situation. It is about the substance of the topic.
- Method describes how information should be managed or analysed so that it will answer the policy-relevant questions asked. It is about methods.
- Discussion, or structured argumentation, describes arguments about a particular statement and a synthesis about an acceptable statement. There are two kinds of statements:
- Fact statement is any text that claims something about the world.
- Value statement is any text that claims that something ought to be or that it is better then something else.
In the structure of shared understanding, each item may have lengthy texts, graphs, analyses or even models inside them. However, the focus here is on how the items are related to each other. The actual content is here referred to as one key sentence only (description) or even a short, memorable name. However, each item also has a unique identifier (ID) that is used for automatic handling of data. Below is an example of items in a summary table. The whole discussion can be found from page Voting age.
ID | Timestamp | User | Description | Type | Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Immaturity is a reason to exclude | Value | Immaturity |
2 | Thu Apr 6 13:07:46 2017 | Jouni | 16-year-olds are mature to do other things as difficult as voting sex, army, speaking publically | Value | Mature enough |
3 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Most 16-year-olds are not mature enough emotionally | Fact | Not yet mature |
6 | Thu Apr 6 13:09:46 2017 | Jouni | Actions that reduce political apathy should be implemented | Value | Reduce apathy |
7 | Thu Apr 6 13:10:46 2017 | Jouni | Waiting before voting increases apathy | Fact, variable | Waiting passivates |
8 | Thu Apr 6 13:11:46 2017 | Jouni | Young people are politically apathic anyway. | Fact | Young apathetic |
27 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | 16-year-olds are mature enough to vote | Value | 16 are mature |
4 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | If you are taxed, you should get to vote | Value | Voting if taxed |
5 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Everyone who uses money pays VAT tax. | Fact | Everyone is taxed |
37 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Voting right can be given based on specified reasons | Value | Given with reasons |
Relations are sentences that connect one item (subject) with a verb (predicate) to another item (object), possibly with qualifiers about scoping, references etc. In the structure of shared understanding, one key idea is that the relations are straightforward and simple enough so that a computer can make inferences about the items and their relations. Therefore, the number of relations is kept small. Some relations are the same as used in Wikidata. These are the key relations:
- From set theory:
- instance of: subject belongs to a set defined by the object and inherits the properties of the set.
- subclass of: subject is a subset of object.
- From logics:
- if - then: If subject is true, then object is true. Also the opposite is possible: if - then not.
- opposite of: subject is opposite of object.
- and, or, equal, exists, for all: logical operators.
- has context: subject given that object is true.
- Causal:
- affects: (more specifically cause of, immediate cause of, contributing factor of). May have specifying qualifiers such as increases, decreases etc.
- Other:
- makes relevant: if the subject is relevant in the given context, then also the object is. This typically goes from a variable to value statement or from a value statement to a fact statement.
- has reference: object is a reference that backs up statements presented in the subject.
- has tag: object is a keyword, type, or class for subject. Used in classifications.
- associates to: subject is associated to object in some way. This is a weak relation and does not affect the outcomes of inferences, but it may be useful to remind users that an association exists and it should be clarified more precisely.
- has truthlikeness: A subjective probability that subject is true. Object is a numeric value between 0 and 1. Typically this has a qualifier "according to X" where X is the person who has assigned the probability.
- has preference: subject is better than object in a moral sense.
- attacks, defends, comments: these argumentative relations are typically used within discussions to reach a statement. Therefore they rarely show up in the structure of shared understanding.
- There may also be mathematical and functional relations, but they are typically used within models. Therefore they rarely show up here.
ID | Timestamp | User | Description | Subject | Predicate | Object | Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Opposes = if – then not | Not yet mature | opposes | Mature enough | |
7 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Supports = if – then | Mature enough | supports | 16 are mature | |
8 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Immaturity AND 16 are mature | supports | Voting for 16 | ||
11 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Given with reasons AND Voting if taxed | supports | Voting for 16 | ||
14 | Thu Apr 6 13:06:46 2017 | Jouni | Voting if taxed | makes relevant | Everyone is taxed |
Rationale
James Fishkin, a key proponent of deliberate democracy, describes two approaches to public opinion, raw vs. refined: what people actually think vs. what their opinion would be after it has been tested by the consideration of competing arguments and information coscientiously offered by others who hold contrasting views. Political process can be seen as wether a filter or a mirror. The filter creates counterfactual but deliberative representations of public opinion. The mirror offers a picture of public opinion just as it is, even if it is debilitated or inattentive. The conflicting images suggest a hard choice between the reflective opinion of the filter and the reflected opinion of the mirror.[1]
It is only through the deliberations of a small face-to-face representative body that one can arrive at the "cool and deliberate sense of the community" (James Madison, Federalist No 63). ... A key desideratum in the Founders' project of constitutional design was the creation of conditions where the formulation and expression of deliberative public opinion would be possible.[1] A smallish group of randomly selected people are likely to act as a filter, while a referendum would act as a mirror. E.g. James Madison actively designed governance structures that would enable the formation of refined public opinion in the national US policy. The electorate was such a construct, designed to enable informed argumentation about president candidates. However, this role has completely disappeared, as nowadays the outcome of the electoral vote is known as soon as the composition of the electorate is known.
Shared understanding follows these lines of reasoning and aims to produce a filtered outcome of informed argumentation. However, the major difference is that the filtering process does not aim to produce a decision, but a comprehensive description of shared understanding with all relevant points and disagreements. This written description enables other people to learn and form their own opinions of the matter, and thus help in other similar decision situations. Although producing such a description may be time-consuming and labourious, re-usability of the information makes it worth the effort.
See also
- Voting age
- Shared undestanding
- op_fi:Yhtäköyttä-hankkeen loppuraportti
- Structure of shared understanding
- Other examples of shared understanding (op_fi:Jaetun ymmärryksen menetelmä in Finnish):