Re: [VM] Draft of 2004-10-25

On Fri, Oct 29, 2004 at 12:30:39AM +0200, Bernard Vatant wrote:
> Thanks for this clean draft, and for the clear definition of tasks.
> I will be back about Published Subjects in a separate thread.
> 
> For now I've a few remarks, a specific one and more general ones :
> 
> The specific remark is about section 3.3.
> I wonder what subtle difference you figure between the following tasks ...
> 
>         TASK: Bernard - Reuse of existing terms in a local context
>         TASK: Everyone - Using terms outside of their original contexts
> 
> ... and why I'm particularly challenged for the first one :))

That is an invitation to elaborate on:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2004Jun/0086.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2004Oct/0023.html

> The more general remarks are about the implicit or explicit use in the document of the
> concept of "identification". I prefer this word, standing for a process, to the absolute
> but elusive notion of "identity" - as is explained at length in recent posts at [2].
> 
> If one looks at the three first entries in the glossary, which should be the core of our
> interagreement in spite of, or thanks to, their "deliberate fuzziness" ...
> 
> 1.	Term                A named concept.
> 2.	Vocabulary          A set of terms.
> 3.	URI Reference       A globally unique identifier.
> 
> A fundamental question appears here that the document should address clearly (if not
> answer) because other ones (including the bleeding edge ones) depend on the answer :
> 
> -- There are "things" (resources, subjects, entities ...) that we want to identify.
> 
> -- In the Semantic Web framework, things are identified by URIs
> 
> -- The things we are interested in are Terms in Vocabularies
> 
> -- A Term is a named concept.
> 
> I suppose that means that when we use a URI to identify a Term in a Vocabulary, we want to
> identify a *concept* and not its *name*. Otherwise we would have written that a Term is a
> *name for a concept*, and that we use the URI to identify the *name*, not the *concept*.
> This is the classical debate between *terminological* vs *conceptual* views of Vocabulary.
> I don't know if we want to stand clearly on one side of this debate. Some of the
> vocabularies or languages we are about seem to stand clearly on the conceptual side of the
> line. Seems that SKOS does, as Topic Maps Published Subjects do. I've never really been
> sure about RDF and OWL being so definitive about it. In any case, the document should say
> clearly at some point either if it stands on one side, and which, and maybe why that one,
> or if it keeps agnostic, and in this latter case deal with both interpretations. This is a
> very difficult question, but we can't sweep it under the carpet.

My first reaction is that the average reader has tolerated
a certain ambiguity about this for years, probably without
ever recognizing the problem: is "rose" a "noun derived from
latin" or "a flower of genus suchandsuch"?  

I would not want to pose this question up-front.  Maybe as one
of the "bleeding edge" questions -- e.g., "What is a term,
really?"  A two-sentence summary of the "classical debate"
you cite (with bibliographic reference) could be a good way
to jump-start that question on the Wiki (maybe before the
current question 3.1 in terms of sequence), and we could see
what examples come in.  A short but coherent answer could be
a nice addition to the paper, especially if written with a
dash of humor :)

> Coming back to 3.3, I'm very uneasy with the use of "meaning"(here as anywhere else) and
> it seems that the wording of the issue in fact goes around identification without naming
> it. The question of reuse is practical. If one reuses a term out of its original context,
> to what extent can/should/may semantic applications (including human end-user brains) use
> it for identification process the same way they would have used the original one? So the
> question of "meaning" boils down to "Is it really the same concept, even if it bears the
> same name and URI?". In this question, the key word is not "mean", it's "same".

I really love these basic questions, but again, I think we
need to keep the note short and readable overall.  It would
be great if we could characterize the problem concisely
and coherently, then point the reader to a really good and
accessible discussion somewhere (e.g., has Pinker written
about the "classical debate"?).

With regard to such issues, I'm always reminded of the joke
about the centipede.  When they asked him now he managed to
coordinate all those legs, he thought about it so hard that he
could no longer walk... :)

Tom

-- 
Dr. Thomas Baker                        Thomas.Baker@izb.fraunhofer.de
Institutszentrum Schloss Birlinghoven         mobile +49-160-9664-2129
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft                          work +49-30-8109-9027
53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany                    fax +49-2241-144-2352
Personal email: thbaker79@alumni.amherst.edu

Received on Friday, 29 October 2004 01:59:46 UTC