RE: web proper names

On Tue, 2004-09-21 at 03:20, Phil Dawes wrote:
> Harry Halpin writes:
>  > > <http://www.hackcraft.net/foaf/>
>  > > <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type>
>  > > <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Document> .
>  > > <http://www.hackcraft.net/foaf/> <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/maker>
>  > > <http://www.hackcraft.net/jon/> .
>  > > <http://www.hackcraft.net/jon/>
>  > > <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type>
>  > > <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person> .
>  > 
>  > Now make the concept of "www.hackcraft.net/jon/" interoperable with 
>  > someone, say a me, who is using "www.ibiblio.org/hhalpin/jon" to refer to 
>  > you. And pretend we don't know each other :) How is a machine going to 
>  > discover that sameAs unless someone tells it that?
>  > 
> 
> Using an IFP - e.g. foaf:mbox. 

Hmm.  My problem is that in the real, muddy world, I think
machine-automated merging is going to run into many more ontological
problems than you can throw a few OWL gimmicks at.

Just ditch the idea: it's not in the least bit practical.  *People* will
always be needed to sort out context, Semantic Web or no.  I think that
once one accepts that, all these semiotic contrivances become easily
seen for the nonsense they are.

I've never been able to figure out the first thing about Topic maps,
because they insist on trying to solve millenia-old symbolic perception
issues with a few layers of indirection.  RDF doesn't need to go there.


> To be honest I'm a bit lost as to why this thread is generating so
> many posts - these are non-problems as far as I can see. They are
> solved in the same way as they are solved in real life - using
> context.
> 
> e.g. 
> 
> <http://example.com/pd> foaf:surname "Dawes"
> 
> clearly indicates to anyone (man or machine) that understands the
> foaf:surname predicate that http://example.com/pd identifies a
> foaf:Person. Not a web page, audio file or anything else not
> compatible with foaf:Person (although a representation may be
> retrieved by HTTP GETting the URI, but that's a seperate matter).

Exactly right.  Leave that symbol grounding stuff to people: the real
symbol grinders.  Meaning should be the substance of flamewars, not
flaccid logic.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com

A hands-on introduction to ISO Schematron - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/edu/x-dw-xschematron-i.html
Wrestling HTML (using Python) - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/09/08/pyxml.html
XML circles the globe - http://www.javareport.com/article.asp?id=9797
Principles of XML design: Considering container elements - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-contain.html
Hacking XML Hacks - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think26.html
A survey of XML standards - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-stand4/

Received on Tuesday, 28 September 2004 16:40:34 UTC