Re: use/mention and reification

On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Frank Manola wrote:

> Patrick Stickler wrote:
>
> > On 2002-01-23 17:42, "ext Frank Manola" <fmanola@mitre.org> wrote:
> >
> >>...
> >>
> >>2.  If two people use different non-URIs, like "Superman" and "Clark
> >>Kent", to refer to (apparently) different things, the same thing holds.
> >>We know they've used different names, but we may still infer they are
> >>talking about the same thing if we get enough additional information.
> >>
> >
> > The same "thing" in the universe, yes, but not the same RDF resource.
> > We wouldn't want all nodes with Superman and ClarkKent URIs to
> > be merged, even if we determine that they denote the same "thing".
>
>
> If we really determined that they truly denote the same "thing", we
> certainly would like to try! There are many highly practical examples
> where you'd want to get rid of one of the identifiers and agree to use
> the other.  The situation here, though, is Superman and ClarkKent URIs
> don't, strictly speaking, denote the same thing [...].

In which case, the example has drifted somewhat from my original intent,
which was based on their being two names for one thing-in-the-world, ie.
some wierd guy who's kinda strong, sometimes wears glasses and sometimes
wears a blue and red leotard.

The point isn't that "lois's idea of superman" and "lois's idea of clark"
are distinct entities worthy of our concern. I was trying to make a much
more mundane and (I'd hoped) less woolly point. Lois lacks complete
information about the name-to-world mappings. Her views, messages, diary
entries and (we ought to steer clear of this) mental states will all be
affected by her lack of the 'complete picture'. On the Web, we have a
similar situation: no one document or agent has the whole story. Often
they're wrong, or lack information. The partial information aspect of this
is my main concern: if *everyone* had faultless access to the meaning of
each and every URI name, I wouldn't have my current concerns about
reification.

Dan

Received on Wednesday, 23 January 2002 16:09:15 UTC