Re: A Rough Guide to Notation3

From: "Seth Russell" <seth@robustai.net>
Subject: Re: A Rough Guide to Notation3
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 10:03:15 -0700

> From: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>

[...]

> > This is a matter of some contention.  In fact, I would argue that one of
> > the main problems with the Semantic Web vision is precisely this view that
> > the Semantic Web is tied to simple labeled directed graphs.
> 
> Why?  Strangely enough  I happen to believe it is the current obsession with
> applying formal logic to language that is one of the main problems with the
> Semantic Web.  Imho, the Semantic Web is about communication and finding
> whatever we are looking for.  I have yet to see a single application of
> formal logic that has furthered that goal.

Well, how are you going to ascribe a common meaning to the graphs you are
sending around?

> > >    It *is* all about the graph !
> >
> > Why should the Semantic Web be restricted to such a limited mechanism?
> 
> Well I do not view it as a limited mechanism.  I have a long standing
> challenge, seeAlso (knowledge representation),  that says that I can
> represent anything that can be expressed in any language with labeled
> directed graphs.  To this day nobody has met that challenge to my
> satisfaction.

Well, how do you *represent* - and here I mean represent, not encode - the
following first-order sentence using *only* labeled directed graphs?

	forall x exists y forall z P(x,y) -> Q(y,z) v S(z,y)

[...]

> Seth Russell

Peter F. Patel-Schneider