How to talk to each other via computers. Semantic interoperability as conceptual imitation

t What exactly does interoperation mean in the context of information science?
Which entities are supposed to interoperate, how can they interoperate, and when can we
say they are interoperating? This question, crucial to assessing the benefit of semantic technology
and information ontologies, has been understood so far primarily in terms of standardization,
alignment and translation of languages. In this article, we argue for a pragmatic
paradigm of interoperability understood in terms of conversation and reconstruction. Based
on examples from geographic information and land cover classification, we argue that semantic
heterogeneity is to a large extent a problem of multiple perspectives. It therefore
needs to be addressed not by standardization and alignment, but by articulation and reconstruction
of perspectives. Concept reconstructions need to be grounded in shared operations.
What needs to be standardized is therefore not the perspective on a concept, but the
procedure to arrive at different perspectives. We propose conceptual imitation as a synthetic
learning approach, and conceptual spaces as a constructive basis. Based on conceptual imitation,
user and provider concepts can be checked for perspectival correspondence.