Re: rdfs:Graph ? comment on http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/#section-dataset and issue 35

On Sep 16, 2013, at 11:33 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:

> Given the g-box discussion, we could identify these things with 'fixed' g-boxes whose state is not allowed to change, but I am less happy with this convention, as the g-box idea introduces the whole business of temporality, state change and so on, which is a huge can of worms that really is not relevant to the "intensional" notion that Jeremy is talking about here. So to introduce all this, then to immediately cancel it by saying the box if 'fixed', is confusing, and conceptual overkill. Personally, I like the letter-A analogy, and would be very happy to have the notion of a token of a graph, being any datastructure or document which encodes or parses to the graph. But not something with a state, not labile or dynamic, just as fixed and eternal as any other RDF notion. And if we do this, then we have a three-way relationship between a name, the graph token it names, and the graph exemplified by the graph token, and we can run your account of datasets without mentioning boxes or implying anything about change and time. Just replace "g-box" with "graph token" (or whatever we decide to call it. It is, of course, a named graph using the conventions from the original paper.) And then your g1/g2 example entailment does not hold, as I think it should not. 


Pat is getting it here!

I read the g-box discussion with a bit of a heavy heart because it is all about change… and it is clear that RDF semantics is not a place where we wish to address change; nor do we stand a hope in hell of getting consensus around a temporal model for RDF semantics. So the focus of the proposal is how we can have one more level of indirection (the gbox in essence), without the philosophical baggage of change.

The motivation is that my graph is my graph even if it is identical in triples to your graph. I want to be able to describe my intent with my graph, which is likely different from your intent.

Jeremy

PS thanks for the intensional/extensional correction