Re: time-varying properties

* Richard H. McCullough <rhm@cdepot.net> [2003-06-25 07:13-0700]
> 
> Given the triples
> (1)    John  height  60
> (2)    John  height  70
> can RDF say that (2) replaces (1) -- as opposed to 
> both (2) and (1) being true?
> 
> Can OWL say that (2) replaces (1)?

Neither the RDF, RDFS or OWL specs really goes far into this 
fascinating and rather tricky area. I do hope it'll get some attention 
in future standardisation work, once we've all got a better handle on the 
problem.

In my FOAF experiments, I've often claimed that foaf:mbox is a
'static' unambiguous property, in that a given 
property/value pair (eg, foaf:mbox=mailto:danbri@w3.org) should never 
be true of varying objects over time. That's tough to formalise given our
current ontology languages...

Dan
formalise given current current