- From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 23:45:56 -0700
- To: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>
- Cc: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
>I am concerned that you have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. >And still left some bathwater. ;-) >Our views do seem rather different > >What is required, and easy, is to say what an RDF document means. Well, doesn't the MT do this already? >What is not required and a bad idea is to explain how to use it. > >1. The meaning of an RDF document is that of the statements. >2. The meaning of the statement is defined by the definition ?What is a definition? >of the predicate, as applying to the subject and object identified by ?How do the subject and object identify things? Neither of these are easy questions to answer and neither of them has an answer in the current spec. > the > definition of the subject and object terms. > >That then hands off to the relevant specs the right and the duty to >define their bit. > >Tim >sans chapeau. > >Brian McBride wrote: > >>Sans chapeau: >> >>My bath time this morning was spent thinking about social meaning. >>I came to the conclusion that 'meaning' is a difficult and slippery >>a concept that we should try to stay away from, sticking to things >>that are more concrete. We should leave talk about 'meaning' to >>the philosophers. > >There we differ. For me, the meaning of a bit-field or a docuemnt or a packet >or a message is what specs are for. Where does any spec for packets, mime type, etc., ever refer to meaning? The very idea of of 'bit' is rooted in a meaning-free notion of 'information', for example. >>Perhaps we can get all we need by describing intended use. > >That is where you start getting into questionable stuff, necessarily >slanting the use of RDF some way. > >If my:car :color :blue means that my car is colored blue, that >is what it means, quite independent of context. >The concept of something having a given color is >defined (and only defined) by the definition of color Bad example, as color terms don't have definitions. >and my:car only serves to idetify the car How does a uriref identify a car? (Genuine question, not rhetorical :) ..... Pat -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax FL 32501 (850)291 0667 cell phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes s.pam@ai.uwf.edu for spam
Received on Sunday, 2 March 2003 01:46:06 UTC