Re: Comment on "Meaning and the Semantic Web"

On Jun 2, 2004, at 11:26 AM, John Black wrote:

>> From: Bijan Parsia
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2004 10:44 AM
>> To: John Black
>>
>> On Jun 2, 2004, at 9:13 AM, John Black wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> But my real point is the symmetry between correct
>> publishing behavior
>>> and correct interpreting behavior.
>>>
>>> So lets change the scene a little:
>> [snipped silly caricature that not only makes Peter and me out to be
>> Machiavellian morons, but doesn't even vaguely hook up to anything
>> we've said]
>
> It seems similarly unfair

This is my last post in this thread, and probably my last post in reply 
to you. You seem incapable of carrying on the debate in any sort of 
sensible manner.

First, if it seems to you that what Peter and I wrote is 1) very wrong 
and and 2) that what you wrote is *similarly* wrong, how is it that you 
don't refrain or apologize for your behavior? *I* think there's a 
relevant asymmetry in what we've done. For one, we don't literally cast 
people into bizarre fantasies. We do claim that certain views lead to 
situations relevantly analogous to certain aspects of totalitarianism 
(e.g., that dissent about meaning is discouraged, or, more worrisomely, 
literally impossible). We may be wrong, but we didn't make any claims 
*at all* about people's motives.

(I really wonder where the chair and the various friends of charitable 
readings are.)

I once was somewhat ambivalent about our use of "totalitarian" (though 
people don't seem unhappy with the metaphorical use of "anarchistic", 
which we didn't start by a long shot). But it has been interesting to 
see what it provokes. Note, I did not think it was *provocative*, just 
rather too cutsey.

>  to me that you and Peter make out anyone
> who argues that "...the URI ownership system makes statements by
> owners authoritative weight..." would lead the world down the road
> of totalitarianism.

I'm so glad we didn't make anyone out that way.

> Nothing that Tim or others have proposed
> warrants your repeated accusations that we are proposing to stifle
> free-speech, crush dissent, stultify the semantic web, or otherwise
> prevent disagreements and usher in Orwellian thought control.

There is a difference in proposing something that has negative 
consequences, and proposing the negative consequences. One is with the 
former that when shown the negative consequences, one reconsiders; with 
the latter, if the negative consequences are shown *not* to follow, one 
reconsiders. I fail to see how anything Peter or I have written, said, 
suggested, dreamt of can be construed as suggesting that we think 
anyone in this forum is advocating the negative consequences.

> These are shock-jock type of arguments

Huh?

> using guilt by association.

I *think* you mean "innuendo". hmm. I'm not sure what you mean. Who did 
we claim were associated with?

>  No one
> that I know of who has ever offered a proposal for URI ownership would
> advocate homophobic, racist, fascist totalitarianism.

When I find someone who claims otherwise, I'll send them your way.

>> You might take a little time to edit your posts before sending them.
>> Restating an example you just posted not a full day before, only this
>> time incorporating your interlocutors in a fairly derogatory way and
>> yet not otherwise augmenting or elaborating the example is just a
>> waste.
>
> I'll consider that.

It might have been better to consider it before you posted.

> You too, eh?

Fortunately, I'm not in the relevantly similar position. I may have 
gotten a bit tart, but I don't believe I've either misrepresented what 
anyone else has said, nor made unfounded comments about anyone's 
person.

I have been accused of a number of things in the course of this debate. 
Perhaps the most serious is not being charitable toward various 
people's "intended meanings". It is true that I started into this 
discussion (by which I mean public-sw-meaning) in order to refute a 
specific proposal made in a specific forum in a specific way. If this 
"task force" had started otherwise, so might have I. I still feel that 
substantive text put forth in a formal forum deserves to be taken as 
the primary artifact. I would have been happy if everyone had simply 
*agreed* that the view I found in the original issue raising (if we go 
back to that) was not what we wanted, but it has been like pulling 
teeth to get that far, and it's not clear that we're there.



>>> The point is that there are use cases where it would be critical
>>> that an interpreting agent be required to discover and report
>>> the actual meaning of a set of published documents.  And this
>>> might be aided by giving URI authors facilities to specify what
>>> that meaning is.
>>
>> We author documents, not URIs.
>>
>> I want my documents to be largely under my control. I
>> prepared for some
>> leeway in interpretation (e.g., looking at a document purely as well
>> formed XML rather than as the particular PSVI I intended),
>> but I don't
>> think that every use of a URI in document *content* should give that
>> URIs owner licence to insert whatever into my document. I'm
>> not adverse
>> to that entirely, obviously, since this pretty much is what
>> owl:imports
>> gives me.
>>
>> It's like the difference between an <a href=.. and an <img src... You
>> don't always want transclusion.
>>
>> None of this has a WHIT to do with some intermediary inserting or
>> altering content "for my own good". Nothing. Nothing at all.
>> Not even a
>> little. Let go, ok?
>
> So drop the accusations of totalitarianism -

I see, blackmail. What does one have to do with the other? Try refuting 
our claims instead of first attacking us, then misrepresenting us, then 
attacking the misrepresentation, then (stupidly) caracituring us.

> they don't have a place
> in these discussions either. ok?

You are fond of faux symmetry lines, I see.

>> There is an interesting question of what aggregators and other
>> republishers might reasonable want or be expected to do. But
>> that is a
>> separate issue.
>
> I'd much prefer to talk about that.

You're free to. Surprising that you need reminding.

I notice you don't address my reply to your distortions. I defy you to 
find support for your scenario in anything  I've written in this forum 
or in our poster.

> The fear of totalitarianism
> seems to me to be the mother of all social meaning arguments,

I have no idea what you mean. The world of your seeming seems to me to 
be a pretty strange place. I certainly don't understand it.

>  which
> is surprising given your position on that topic.

Given how you "interpret" my positions, I'm not sure what can surprise 
you. However, I remain clueless to your meaning.

I take my leave of you.

Bijan Parsia.

Received on Wednesday, 2 June 2004 18:42:04 UTC