Re: What is a URL? And What is a URI

On 11/12/10 1:31 PM, Patrick Durusau wrote:
> Kingsley,
>
> On Fri, 2010-11-12 at 10:12 -0500, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>> On 11/12/10 8:40 AM, Patrick Durusau wrote:
>>> Kingsley,
>>>
>>> On Fri, 2010-11-12 at 07:58 -0500, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
>>>> On 11/12/10 5:59 AM, Patrick Durusau wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Patrick / Dave,
>>>>
>>>> I am hoping as the responses come in we might pick up something. There
>>>> is certainly some confusion out there.
>>>>
>>>> Note my comments yesterday re. URIs and Referents. I believe this
>>>> association to be 1:1, but others may not necessarily see it so.
>>>>
>>> Isn't it that "...others may not necessarily see it so." that lies at
>>> the heart of semantic ambiguity?
>> Yes!
>>
>> We are perpetuating ambiguity by conflating realms, ultimately. The Web
>> of URLs != Web of URIs. They are mutually inclusive (symbiotic).
>>
> Err, no, we are not "perpetuating ambiguity." Ambiguity isn't a choice,
> it is an operating condition.

I believe that conflating realms increases ambiguity, maybe that's a 
little clearer?

>>> Semantic ambiguity isn't going to go away. It is part and parcel of the
>>> very act of communication.
>> This is why Context is King.
>>
>> You can use Context to reduce ambiguity.
>>
>> A good Comedian is a great Context flipper, for instance.
>>
>> Ambiguity exists in the real-world too, we use Context to disambiguate
>> every second of our lives.
>>
> Eh? True enough but context in the "real-world" (do computers exist in a
> make believe world?) is as unbounded as the subjects we talk about.

In our world there are computers, and from computers we have a sense of 
"cypberspace", the Web, the Internet, even InterWeb, for instance.

> It is the journal I am reading that is part of the "context" I am using
> for a particular article or is it the author or is it the subject matter
> or is it the sentence just before the one I am reading?

You make context out of that otherwise it would all be incomprehensible. 
I can't fashion or construct your "context halo", I do sense its 
existence though :-)
> All of those, at times some of those and at still other times, other
> things will inform my context.
>

But you will use a specific context for data comprehension otherwise 
there would be no information (context driven perception of data).

>>> It is true that is very limited circumstances with very few semantics,
>>> such as TCP/IP, that is it possible to establish reliable communications
>>> across multiple recipients. (Or it might be more correct to say
>>> semantics of concern to such a small community that agreement is
>>> possible. I will have to pull Stevens off the shelf to see.)
>>>
>>> As the amount of semantics increases (or the size of the community), so
>>> does the potential for and therefore the amount of semantic ambiguity.
>>> (I am sure someone has published that as some ratio but I don't recall
>>> the reference.)
>> So if a community believes in self-describing data, where the data is
>> the conveyor of context, why shouldn't it be able express such believes
>> in its own best practice options?

Great point! A community that subscribes to self-describing data, so 
dog-food self-describing data. Yes!!

>> Basically, we can solve ambiguity in
>> the context of Linked Data oriented applications. Of course, that
>> doesn't apply to applications that don't grok Linked Data or buy into
>> the semantic fidelity expressed by the content of a structured data
>> bearing (carrying) resource e.g. one based on EAV model + HTTP URI based
>> Names.
>>
> Not to be offensive but are you familiar with "begging the question?"
>
> You are assuming that "...we can solve ambiguity in the context of
> Linked Data oriented applications."*

A Linked Data application is capable of perceiving an E-A-V graph 
representation of data. That's context it can establish from content.

> That is the *issue* at hand and cannot be assumed to be true, lest we
> all run afoul of "begging the question" issues.
>
> Hope you are having a great day!

Yes :-)
> Patrick
>
> *Your "Linked Data Application* may supply context but that *is not*
> interchangeable with other "Linked Data Applications."
>
> Nor does it reduce ambiguity.

Again EAV or SPO based data should be unambiguous to any Linked Data 
aware application.
> Why?
>
> For the same reason in both cases, there is no basis on which context
> can be associated with identification. Remember, the URI is the
> identifier. (full stop)
See comment above.

> Fix it so that URI plus *specified* properties in RDF graph identify a
> subject, then you have a chance to reduce (not eliminate) ambiguity. Not
> as a matter of personal whimsy but as part of a standard that everyone
> follows.

Again, you've just described the essence of the matter re. what is 
current tagged Ian's solution.

Links:

1. http://goo.gl/6ozSv -- URI Debugger view of the Document at: 
http://dbpedia.org/page/Paris (crystal clear to a user agents across 
various levels of semantic-fidelity and metadata sources e.g. HTTP 
response headers)




-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
President&  CEO
OpenLink Software
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen

Received on Friday, 12 November 2010 21:06:00 UTC