RE: Exact Search

Thanks for your interesting article. 

I am somewhat on the fringes of the semantic web community so I speak
with no authority whatsoever ;) but IMHO for what its worth...

- I really like your vision of the sort of questions we would like to
ask the web.

- I agree with your analysis of "Page" and "Relation". It seems unlikely
that your vision can be realized with keyword search based on pages. 

- I agree with the Wittgenstein model of language that "meaning is use".


- I agree that words should be context dependent, and that complex
meanings should be built from combinations of words just as complex
objects are built from combinations of atoms.

However, it seems to me that these beliefs are diametrically opposed to
central tenets of the SW Community. As I understand it, at the heart of
the prevailing SW philosophy is the idea that the world can be
decomposed into atomic objects and relations which can be uniquely
identified, and which can be given a one-one correspondence with Web
locations. In the SW, 

* Every identifier is a link to a web location.  

* Every identifier has a unique and unambiguous meaning. 

It seems to me that ultimately, the reductionist model of language is
doomed to failure. On the other hand, a reductionist model can still be
very successful in describing some aspects of the real world. I guess
that whether it is an adequate model for the semantic web depends on the
scope of your ambition! Be that as it may, I cannot see how these two
views can be reconciled.  

Tim Glover




-----Original Message-----
From: semantic-web-request@w3.org [mailto:semantic-web-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Patrizia and Gerard
Sent: 26 February 2006 03:53
To: semantic-web@w3.org
Subject: Exact Search

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have an area of interest which I am hoping the Semantic Web Interest
Group may take an interest in. It covers some of the same territory as
"web services" and the "semantic web".
I call the area "exact search". It is an attempt to address the problems
that web key word searches using search engines have. Especially the
issue of irrelevant results. 
An "exact search" is a search featuring a number of terms where what is
sought is a definition, explanation, translation, calculation or some
other function of the terms such that the result is definitive,
complete, authoritative, and optimally singular.
I have written a paper on exact search. The paper proposes the
development of a standard wws (world wide search). The technical tactics
adapted by wws are:
* The use of Relations rather than Pages as the basic unit of meaning.
* The use of "remote service relations" which are RDF's which have
"resources" which are "web services" which implement "language games"
expressed in relations.
* The modeling of interoperable distributed processes as processes which
implement the same language game by implementing the same relations.
* The use of search indexes or directories which leverage "service
identifiers" associated with "language games".
* The use of communication which emulates human communication by
allowing communicators to progressively build on previous
communications.
* The use of communication which emulates human communication by
allowing symbols to be freely mixed in new and different ways.
* The use of "interpreter services" to interpret between processes
running different language game versions or different language games.
* The use of both Search Services, the end points of search, and Search
Agents, orchestrators of search.

The main innovation in the paper is to propose the concept of "language
game" as a competitor to the concept of "ontology" in the area of
semantics. "remote service relations" constitute the key technical
device.

If there is interest in this area, then I would like to have a
discussion group review the paper, and then establish a project to
develop the area.

The url of the paper is 
	
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/page7/exactsearch.html

The paper is an incomplete draft, with work still in progress. However,
I would appreciate knowing whether your organization would be like to
take an interest in the area.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for your attention.

Best Regards.

Gerard McGovern

Received on Monday, 27 February 2006 11:15:33 UTC