Re: Impact of monotonicity in RDF (was: Social Meaning and RDF)

Graham Klyne wrote:

> [Switched thread to RDF-interest]
>
> At 06:57 AM 2/6/03 -0800, Seth Russell wrote:
>
>>       And this is a real constraint, not just a form of words:
>>       for example, RDF really is monotonic, and that imposes
>>        some nontrivial conditions on *any* notion of RDF
>>        meaning, social or otherwise. " .
>>
>> I can't seem to wrap my pee brain around the idea that this restraint 
>> is useful in a nonmonotonic social world where truths are always 
>> popping in and out of existance.   From a layman's perspective could 
>> you elaborate on what this restraint really entails ?  How should we 
>> think about this as we are reading and writing RDF assertions ?
>
>
> I have some recent experience of how this impacts RDF design for a 
> "real" application.  You need to be aware of the monotonicity 
> constraints when defining new vocabulary terms.
>
> My example comes from defining network access policies, in which I 
> need to define a collection of Internet services that a person may be 
> allowed to use.  An Internet service is typically defined in  terms of 
> an IP protocol number (usually indicating UDP or TCP) and a port 
> number.  So a web access service using HTTP is (usually) accessed 
> using the TCP (IP protocol number 6) on port number 80.
>
> Using my vocabulary and Notation3, this would be expressed as:
>
> [[
> homenet:HTTP a user:ServiceProtocol ;
>     rdfs:label           "HTTP service" ;
>     user:ipProtocol      "TCP" ;
>     user:includePort     "80" ;
>     rdfs:comment
>         """
>         Web access using HTTP.
>         """ .
> ]] -- EXAMPLE 1
> adapted from 
> http://www.ninebynine.org/SWAD-E/Scenario-HomeNetwork/Users.n3
>
>
> It is also useful to be able to express multiple protocols in a single 
> service description:
> [[
> homenet:P2PTCP a user:ServiceProtocol ;
>     rdfs:label           "P2P TCP services" ;
>     user:ipProtocol      "TCP" ;
>     user:includePort     "1214" ;
>     user:includePort     "6346" ;
>     user:includePort     "6347" ;
>     rdfs:comment
>         """
>         All peer-to-peer TCP services:
>         FastTrack (1214), GnuTella (6346, 6347)
>         """ .
> ]] -- EXAMPLE 2
> excerpted from 
> http://www.ninebynine.org/SWAD-E/Scenario-HomeNetwork/Users.n3
>
> It is further sometimes useful to be able to specify that all port 
> numbers *except* some specified values will be allowed.  An "obvious", 
> but incorrect, way to code this might be:
> [[
> homenet:NonP2PTCP a user:ServiceProtocol ;
>     rdfs:label           "Non-P2P TCP services" ;
>     user:ipProtocol      "TCP" ;
>     user:excludePort    "1214" ;
>     user:excludePort    "6346" ;
>     user:excludePort    "6347" ;
>     rdfs:comment
>         """
>         All TCP services excluding peer-to-peer protocols:
>         FastTrack (1214), GnuTella (6346, 6347)
>         """ .
> ]] -- EXAMPLE 3
> adapted from 
> http://www.ninebynine.org/SWAD-E/Scenario-HomeNetwork/Users.n3
>
> So why is this wrong?  The RDF subgraph lemma requires that if some 
> RDF graph is interpreted as expressing a truth, then any subgraph must 
> also be a truth.
>
> In the case of EXAMPLE 2 above, if it is true that the three ports 
> enumerated can be accessed, then it is also true that any two of them 
> can be accessed.  E.g., the following is also true:
> [[
> homenet:NonP2PTCP a user:ServiceProtocol ;
>     user:ipProtocol      "TCP" ;
>     user:includePort    "6346" ;
>     user:includePort    "6347" ;
> ]] -- EXAMPLE 2A
>
> But, looking to EXAMPLE 3, if it is true that any but the three ports 
> mentioned can be accessed, we cannot safely assert that this is true:
> [[
> homenet:NonP2PTCP a user:ServiceProtocol ;
>     user:ipProtocol      "TCP" ;
>     user:excludePort    "6346" ;
>     user:excludePort    "6347" ;
> ]] -- EXAMPLE 3A
>
> So we need to find another way of describing all but some specified 
> ports.  (My solution is in the file cited.)
>
> ...
>
> Above, I've tried to answer your question "could you elaborate on what 
> this restraint really entails" (or maybe what it does not entail?).  
> One has to choose the meaning of one's terms with a little care.
>
> You also ask how this is "useful";  my explanation above suggests the 
> reverse -- monotonicity is in some respects an impediment.  But in an 
> open-world environment, in which one can *never* be sure of having all 
> of the facts to hand, no conclusions can be drawn without an 
> assumption of monotonicity.  So if we are to make inferences in such 
> circumstances, we must have a monotonic framework. 

Im sorry but I cannot grok this reasoning.  

Granted, we cannot assume we have all the facts.  Granted, the truth of 
our conclusions are always dependant upon the truth and *completness* of 
our premises.  How can monotonicity change that predicament in the 
slightest?  I keep hearing:  "We know that we cannot conclude 
such-and-such because we might be missing some information, so we *must* 
change all the vocabulary and inference patterns to  be monotonic,  and 
then  we *can* draw such a conclusion.   Huh, what changed - what 
suddenly made drawing unwarrented conclusions valid?   How can we 
suddely make statements that are always true?  
 

>
> Having an monotonic, open-world framework does not, in my view, mean 
> that one cannot also have a locally applied closed-world assumption 
> for some applications, but this strays outside the globally specified 
> behaviour for RDF.  And the conclusions drawn by such an application 
> cannot be returned to the global semantic web (unless somehow 
> qualified by some expression of the closed world assumption used -- 
> which might be presented as a "context"). 

But we have no way to present a "context"  with RDF  statements. 
 Everything in RDF seems always to be true regardless of its context.   
Of course we all know that's absurb.  I really dont see how monotonic 
logic helps us here - rather the other way around.  It seems to lead 
people to believe that all of their RDF conclusions will always be valid 
and that discovering new information cannot change those conclusions.   
If RDF is really specified like this, then only God will be able to 
write it, because only God will be able to compute all the implications 
of his\her statements forever and ever.

What am I missing?

Seth Russell
http://robustai.net/papers/Monotonic_Reasoning_on_the_Semantic_Web.html

Received on Thursday, 6 February 2003 13:28:03 UTC