Re: issues to be resolved before last call (rdfms-assertion)

From: "Jos De_Roo" <jos.deroo@agfa.com>
Subject: Re: issues to be resolved before last call (rdfms-assertion)
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 13:42:20 +0100

> 
> > > > > I think there are other points and I'm borrowing the
> > > > > following from Pat as I couldn't express it better...
> > > > >
> > > > > The point is that publication of RDF, when considered
> > > > > as a social act, constitutes a publication of some content
> > > > > which is defined by whatever normal *social* conditions
> > > > > are used by the publishers of any terms in the RDF to
> > > > > define the meanings of those terms, even if those meanings
> > > > > and definitions are not accessible to the formal semantics
> > > > > of RDF; and, moreover, those meanings are *preserved* under
> > > > > any formally sanctioned inference processes. [*]
> > > >
> > > > Here is the very, very scary part.  Anyone publishing any RDF, even if the
> > > > publishing is being done by an agent that only understands RDF formal
> > > > meaning, is considered to import the entirely of the social meaning of a
> > > > bunch of other RDF documents.  How can any organization employ RDF agents
> > > > under this extraordinarily strong reading of RDF meaning?
> > >
> > > such RDF meanings can always be be proved and explained back to
> > > their roots and those are held responsible for what they assert!
> > > (plus that making information explicit removes it from the context)
> >
> > Huh?  How can they be *proved*?  What system will do the proving?
> 
> well, I should have said *proof checked* as the
> formally sanctioned inference processes in above [*]
> should generate/exchange their proofs

Take a look at the example in RDF Concepts.   The part that makes the
connection is natural language.  How are you going to proof check that?

> > The example in RDF Concepts indicates that the agent that combines
> > information is responsible for any consequences of the social meaning of
> > whatever it combines, even if the agent has no possibility of understanding
> > this social meaning.   It appears to me, futhermore, that the source of
> > this social meaning could be completely outside the World-Wide Web, even to
> > the point of being in the mind of some deceased person.
> 
> it is free to use any sources, but once it is asserting
> them it should carry all consequences (in proof form)
> what's so wrong with that?

Well, how can you carry around a proof that refers to the contents of
someone's mind, living or dead?  If, instead, you want all consequences to
be available from the source of a fact, then we are going to need much,
much bigger disks.

> Jos De Roo, AGFA http://www.agfa.com/w3c/jdroo/

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research
Lucent Technologies

Received on Sunday, 19 January 2003 16:04:07 UTC