- From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 20:08:25 -0500
- To: Stefan Decker <stefan@db.stanford.edu>
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
>Hi, > >>Hey, come out from behind the arras. You really should try reading >>something some day. Did it never occur to you that natural >>language IS a global information space? It did to CS Peirce, >>Bertrand Russel, and WVO Quine, to name but a few. More recently, >>you could check out the discussions on the SUO lists to see what >>really happens if you try to make a globally coherent ontology. >>That is what a lot of we KR folk spend our time trying to do, in >>fact. Using RDF would be like trying to fill a reservoir using >>teaspoons. >my understanding was always that this is something we (RDF, Semantic >Web folks) >DON'T want to do (building a globally coherent ontology). Not a single global ontology, I agree. But nobody is suggesting that: the discussion above (as I understood it, at least) is about global communication of content, by which I assume is meant the 'open-ended' nature of knowledge that putting an ontology on the Web seems to imply, and the need for a uniformly accepted language/notation for communicating content between ontologies (which might well disagree with one another). Both of which are true of ordinary NL utterances expressed by ordinary people in ordinary social discourse, is my point, and hence are not the bright, shining new topics that some people seem to think they are. >Rather we focus on small subsets and worry how to make them interoperable. What exactly does 'interoperable' mean? Does it imply mutually consistency, for example? (If not, what does it mean?) If so, then it would seem to presume that the people/agents/thingies in these small subsets are at least using a language to communicate with one another that has a clear notion of mutual consistency. And that requires a semantics. >This seems also to be much more scaleable (and, actually, realistic). >And then there are arguments that RDF does make much sense Stefan, you keep saying things like this to me. I havn't ever heard any of the actual arguments, however. Would you care to make some? > (again, look at the semistructured data area). OK, I will. I don't know it well, though. Pointers? Pat --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Thursday, 17 May 2001 21:08:27 UTC