RE: The X Datatype Proposal

>  > -----Original Message-----
>>  From: ext Pat Hayes [mailto:phayes@ai.uwf.edu]
>>  Sent: 16 November, 2001 00:39
>>  To: Stickler Patrick (NRC/Tampere)
>>  Cc: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
>>  Subject: RE: The X Datatype Proposal
>>
>>
>>  >....
>>  >I fully agree, which is the default for the X model. A
>>  >statement is just a statement. It is not asserted until
>>  >and unless someone makes a statement about that statement
>>  >that indicates that it was asserted, e.g. via the
>>  >proposed property assertedBy (some authority).
>>
>>  But what makes THAT asserted? You seem to be in a vicious regress
>>  here. If a statement isn't asserted until another statement about it
>>  is asserted, then that in turn isn't asserted until an even bigger
>>  statement about IT is asserted, and so on.
>
>I take your point, but my point was that a given system (or process)
>itself defines the criteria by which statements are selected as
>relevant (asserted) and it may utilize particular ontologies to
>base that selection on.

But until something gets asserted, we don't even have any ontologies; 
we just have content-free syntax.

>aThus, what one process may consider "asserted", another may not, and
>yet they all can operate at the same time on the same knowledge base
>of statements without their "world views" getting in the way of one
>another.

I disagree. If they don't agree about what is asserted, they can't 
even know what one another are saying, so they can't do any 
operations on the knowledge base. If nothing is asserted, the 
knowledge base is empty.

>The idea that assertion is a primitive of the statement presumes
>that a given knowledge base only holds one world view, so to speak.

Well, it does indeed assume that they agree about what counts as 
being asserted. But I think we have to assume this much agreement 
just in order for communication to be possible at all. If I don't 
know if you are asserting something or just, as it were, holding it 
up to be contemplated, then how can I know what to make of it, or 
what I should be expected to infer from it?

Pat
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Received on Friday, 16 November 2001 13:48:50 UTC