Re: How will the semantic web emerge - OO languages

Henry Story wrote:
> I think the distinction is between what is, and what you can deduce.
> If I steal your wallet I am a thief. You need not deduce that. But
> that does not make it less so. The foaf ontology makes certain
> statements about the relations between things. A consumer of these
> statements need not be very intelligent, indeed it need not even be
> able to make any inferences. It does not follow that those inferences
> are not contained in the ontology.

Granted I have only expended cursory attention to this discussion, but now I
find myself either a) disagreeing or b) not understanding.

As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the act of stealing that makes the
perpetrator a thief *unless* we in fact deduce that. Perhaps the way we
"think" in our daily lives intrudes here. Those who steal we consider
thieves: we think that they *are* thieves, whereas in fact we have in fact
*deduced* that.

I guess when you say "what is" I interpret that as something having been
*asserted*, whereas when we "deduce" I interpret that as a situation where I
*could* assert the results of the deduction.

Splitting hairs? Perhaps. Ignore all this at will.

    - Ora

-- 
Ora Lassila  mailto:ora.lassila@nokia.com  http://www.lassila.org/
Research Fellow, Nokia Research Center / Boston

Received on Wednesday, 21 December 2005 16:36:03 UTC