- From: Paul Gearon <gearon@ieee.org>
- Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:07:39 -0500
- To: Ian Emmons <iemmons@bbn.com>
- Cc: semantic-web@w3c.org
On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Ian Emmons<iemmons@bbn.com> wrote: > On Jul 10, 2009, at 5:53 AM, Toby Inkster wrote: >> >> The URL of the file and the URL of the subject of discourse must differ >> so that we can make unambiguous statements about each, and make >> statements about the relationship between the two. > > If one takes the preceding statement as fact and then watches the video > shared by Dan Brickley: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ > > Then the only logical conclusion is that the SemWeb will never achieve > widespread use. If average folks can't distinguish between their browser > and a search engine, how could we ever expect them to distinguish between > the URI of the file and the URI of the subject of discourse? The answer is > that we can't. But you're talking about 2 different audiences. Anyone writing anything for the web (writing HTML, constructing URIs, building RDF) has a different understanding of browser-vs-searchengine than the average person on the street. Understanding the difference between URIs of a file and the URI of the subject of discourse is exactly the same concept portrayed in the painting "The Treachery of Images". That's the famous one of a pipe with the phrase "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe)[1]. Most people understand that an image of a pipe is not a pipe, so why can't they understand that a webpage about a person is not a person? > So either the SemWeb will have correct KR, logical, and > ontological underpinnings, or lots of people will publish data, but not > both. It'll never be perfect, but I think there'll be enough overlap to make things interesting and useful. Also, if raw data is useful enough, then people tend to write ontologies, transformations, and other tools to get it into a working space. Screen scrapers are a common example of this phenomenon. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images Regards, Paul
Received on Friday, 10 July 2009 16:08:16 UTC