Re: Explanation, Mechanistic Reasoning, and Abstraction: Hypertext and Hypermodels

On 11/27/21 7:00 AM, Adam Sobieski wrote:
. . .
>  1. The robot caused the elevator to arrive.
>  2. The robot pressed the button which caused the elevator to arrive.
>  3. The robot used its arm to press the button which caused the elevator
>     to arrive.
. . .
> Any thoughts on these topics?

Yes.  All of the above examples are reasonable ways to model what 
happened, and each model would be appropriate for a particular purpose.

I think we (still) need convenient ways both to express the 
relationships between those models and to conveniently shift from one 
model to another when using them.  This is analogous to using 
(aggregate) objects in programming.  For one purpose we might manipulate 
an object as a whole, but for another purpose we might need to open up 
that object to see and manipulate its constituent parts -- a greater 
level of detail.  Or vice versa: we may have the constituent parts, and 
wish to "bless" those parts to become a coherent object that can be 
manipulated as a whole.

I view ontologies and rules as the basic building blocks for addressing 
this problem: ontologies can define declarative relationships between 
models, and rules can define operational conversion between models. 
However, in spite of the fact that we've had ontologies and rules for 
many years, I think this field is still in its infancy in terms of 
having strong patterns and convenient languages for using them with RDF 
to easily navigate between modeling levels.  "Levels" is not quite the 
right word though, because different models form a network, not a single 
hierarchy.

I personally think N3 shows the greatest promise so far, toward making 
rules convenient to use with RDF, and I'm grateful that there's a core 
group of dedicated folks who have been working diligently to develop, 
implement, and standardize it:
https://www.w3.org/community/n3-dev/

It would be wonderful if some bright young minds could take a fresh look 
at the problem of how to conveniently navigate between models, and come 
up with some fresh bold new ideas.   Or perhaps even some stale modest 
old ideas that would still make incremental progress.  :)

David Booth

Received on Saturday, 27 November 2021 18:00:09 UTC