Now I no longer know what my opinion is :-( Was RE: abstract model

On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, McBride, Brian wrote:

> > > 6.  There is a mapping called Reification which a maps
> > >     each member s of Statements onto a unique member r
> > >     of Resources.

My problem with this statement stems from my confusing 'uri' with 'resource'.

I've had the engineering problem knocking around in the back of my head:
how does one go about constructing an RDF database (or "model" with a small
"m") that relates to the proposed formal axioms we're discussing?

For that purpose, I've been ignoring (deliberately) the problem of what
a URI is: a symbol that refers to some referent. So all considerations of
identity I've been 'punting': asking "are these URIs identical?", not
"are the resources which these URIs refer to identical?" (deliberately:
the latter is a harder question).

This is why I don't like point 6 above; because I was (implicitly)
reading it as "there is a mapping called Reification which maps each
member, s, of Statements onto a unique uri, r" and I was concerned about
the implications this had.

Dan just pointed me at
	http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/peirce/ontometa.htm
and I've fallen into the trap outlined in the first paragraph :-(

I'm still not sure what the right thing to do is. I'm not even sure if
I should be saying

	"the sequence* of URLs (http://one, http://two, http://three)"

instead of

	"a sequence* of URLs (http://one, http://two, http://three)"

Sigh.

- confused in Bristol

* or bag, etc.

-- 
jan grant, ILRT, University of Bristol. http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/
Tel +44(0)117 9287163 Fax +44 (0)117 9287112 RFC822 jan.grant@bris.ac.uk
Unfortunately, I have a very good idea how fast my keys are moving.