Re: ISSUE 149 - wording in Semantics in "Intuitive Summary" subsection

On Oct 4, 2013, at 5:03 PM, Peter Patel-Schneider wrote:

> I don't understand.  Although there is some sloppiness here, as conditions 1-4 talk about refer and don't explicitly mention "in the interpretation", surely the "under a given interpretation" provides the correct context.

Consider:

"An RDF graph is true under a given interpretation exactly when:
> 
> >
> > 1. the IRIs and literals in subject or object position in the graph all
> > refer to things,

But suppose that they refer to things that are not in the universe of the given interpretation, then this is false. So to make it true, we have to change it to

1. the IRIs and literals in subject or object position in the graph all refer to things in the universe of the given interpretation, 

and so on in the same vein. And then this becomes a redundant restatement of the truth conditions given previously, just as opaque to someone who wants to read about truth and reference but does not want to wrestle with the idea of an interpretation. No doubt David would respond, but readers should be *obliged* to think about interpretations, and then my reply would be, OK, but if so then this section is inappropriate in the first place, so let us delete this section. 

Pat

> 
> peter
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 4, 2013 at 9:39 AM, Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:
> 
> On Oct 4, 2013, at 10:51 AM, Peter Patel-Schneider wrote:
> 
> > In my opinion the divergence boils down to Pat believing that this informative section should be more informal and David believing that it has to be more formal.   The wording differences appear to amount to:
> >
> > Current document:
> > An RDF graph is true exactly when:
> >
> > 1. the IRIs and literals in subject or object position in the graph all refer to things,
> >
> > 2. there is some way to interpret all the blank nodes in the graph as referring to things,
> >
> > 3. the IRIs in property position refer to binary relationships,
> >
> > 4. and under these interpretations, each triple S P O in the graph asserts that the thing referred to as S, and the thing referred to as O, do in fact stand in the relationship referred to by P.
> >
> >
> > David's proposal:
> >
> > [[
> > An RDF graph is true under a given interpretation exactly when:
> >
> > 1. the IRIs and literals in subject or object position in the graph all
> > refer to things,
> >
> > 2. there is some way to map all the blank nodes in the graph to things,
> >
> > 3. the IRIs in property position refer to binary relationships, and
> >
> > 4. each triple S P O in the graph asserts that the thing referred to as
> > S, and the thing referred to as O, do in fact stand in the relationship
> > referred to by P.
> > ]]
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > The difference is that David apparently believes that this section should be about truth in an interpretation whereas the current wording sits "above" this.
> >
> >
> >
> > Given that David's proposal is not false, and that it also does provide an intuitive summary, can everyone (who cares) live with David's wording?  I can.
> 
> I can't. This wording is confusing, since the conditions 1-4 simply do not refer to the "interpretation" mentioned in the first line, and uninformative, since it fails to provide the intended intuitive gloss for what "interpretation" means.
> 
> I would prefer to delete the section entirely. It is only in the document as a sop to the idea that the semantics should provide intuitions in a 'tutorial' style, and as we had earlier decided to avoid such tutorial material, and as this section is creating such difficulties already, let us simply remove it from the document. Its removal will not change any actual content in the document.
> 
> Pat
> 
> >  The response that would go out should be fairly carefully written.
> >
> >
> > peter
> >
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC                                     (850)434 8903 home
40 South Alcaniz St.            (850)202 4416   office
Pensacola                            (850)202 4440   fax
FL 32502                              (850)291 0667   mobile (preferred)
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Received on Saturday, 5 October 2013 03:26:30 UTC