RE: Reification

From: "Danny Ayers" <danny@panlanka.net>
Subject: RE: Reification
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 20:17:06 +0600

> <- Your scheme above is encoding, not expressing, because RDF has
> <- no mechanism
> <- that can be used to capture the meaning of negation.
> 
> Can you give me an example of a model that *can* be used to capture the
> meaning?

Sure, suppose that we had a logic (which incorporates syntax and semantics
(or deduction)) that did not have negation, but instead had nor.  Then we
could (easily) capture the meaning of negation (not p is the same as p nor
p).  I know that this seems simplistic, after all, isn't nor the same as
negation in some sense?, but, in the end, most encodings at this level are
simplistic.

> Why does it need to capture the meaning in any case - if machine A
> understands a = !b means 'not' and machine B understands a = !b means 'not'
> why does the data model have to understand for a message to be conveyed?

It desn't.  But then the transfer mechanism (and its data model) plays
exactly the same role as bit strings or Goedel numbers in the understanding
and specification of the message, i.e., the message is encoded in the
transfer mechanism and not embedded in it.

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research

Received on Monday, 9 April 2001 14:28:13 UTC