Re: action item on reification

At 05:11 PM 5/25/01 -0500, Aaron Swartz wrote:
>Graham Klyne <Graham.Klyne@Baltimore.com> wrote:
>
> > (6) quotation has also been mentioned (but I think this is wrong... see 
> below)
>
>Below, you do not seem to answer this. What about the example (used in EARL
>and other apps) that:
>
>     John said "I like fish."
>
>This feature should not go away.

You're right, on both counts:  I didn't address it, and the issue you cite 
won't go away.  Below is an excerpt from an off-list message I sent to 
Frank, which does address the issue:

---

The other point which the logicians seem to object to is the idea of 
reification as "quotation", which brings statements in the RDF "language" 
into RDF's domain of discourse.  This requires a whole mechanism of 
"reflexion" -- an ability for RDF to interpret its own statements -- which 
is claimed by some to be an unnecessarily exotic (difficult?) logical 
concept to achieve what is required.

(See, for example, the exchange between Pat Hayes and myself:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001May/0056.html
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001May/0071.html
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001May/0120.html
I'm not sure if the fact that Pat didn't reply further to this means that 
he found no
further point of disagreement, or simply didn't want to continue the 
debate.  But to me, the difference between using a resource to denote the 
interpretation of an RDF statement in the domain of discourse, as opposed 
to quoting the statement itself, seems to be exactly the point he was making.)

This also relates to the idea that, in simple quotation, quantification 
doesn't apply to variables within the quoted expression.  Drew McDermott 
makes this point repeatedly, most recently at:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001May/0312.html
This posting also hints at "a different form of reification" that is not 
simple quotation.

---

My entire message is available at 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-archive/2001May/0016.html.  (I 
didn't post it to this list at that time, because it contains much personal 
interpretation and I thought it might add more confusion at a point when 
the goal seemed to try and draw issues into focus.)

#g


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Graham Klyne                    Baltimore Technologies
Strategic Research              Content Security Group
<Graham.Klyne@Baltimore.com>    <http://www.mimesweeper.com>
                                 <http://www.baltimore.com>
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Received on Saturday, 26 May 2001 03:43:54 UTC