Re: a look at SW problems

On May 16, 2005, at 1:55 pm, Linda wrote:
> How can we overcome the difference of extentions? What are we going to 
> do with polysemous words? If anybody can give me some information or a 
> link to a related article, I will appreciate it a lot.

I don't believe there is a problem here - at least not an 
insurmountable one. The point is not to view 'words' (or indeed any 
'extentions', information or metadata) as standalone entities with 
fixed meaning (surely, everything is just a matter of opinion after 
all). They all have context. The meaning of anything is defined by its 
relationship to everything else.

We have to start with the basic (safe) premise that no two people think 
alike. Therefore, the word 'cat' may mean two completely different 
things to two different people. There may be a specific agreed 
relationship between these two peoples' understanding of 'cat' as in: 
'when John says cat he means the same thing as when Jane says cat'. If 
there isn't a specific relationship then we could use fuzzy guesswork 
to try and figure out what people actually mean based on a general 
consensus or something. Both cases are valid depending on your desired 
outcome. That's just my opinion...

Cheers Daniel

Received on Tuesday, 17 May 2005 12:35:32 UTC