RE: Validation in CC/PP

Hi Tayeb

> Hi Mark and Art

> > Why don't you guys just re-do CC/PP in RELAX-NG or XML Schema :-)

> I think that the use of RDF in CC/PP is very benefit thanks to 
> the semantic advantages of RDF. 

What exactly are the "semantic advantages" of RDF?

Recently I've been reading John Sowa's book on Knowledge Representation. In
my opinion there is currently a misunderstanding that if we use RDF we
automatically adopt a well founded semantics. This is simply not true:
simply using RDF does not influence the semantics of data in any way as
semantics are determined by observers i.e. how the RDF model maps on to the
real world (in fact, there is a extreme position that says computers CAN
ONLY process syntatic structures - for more details see John Searle's
Chinese Room scenario[3]). The Model Theory for RDF has helped matters, but
I don't see that the model theory is particularly helpful for CC/PP as CC/PP
has it's own (unfortunately implicit) intepretation of what is meant by a
CC/PP profile. 

Furthermore IMHO RDF is a rather confusing starting point for establishing
well founded semantics as it operates below the ontology level i.e. RDF may
be regarded as "machine code" for knowledge representation as there are a
lot of similarities between RDF and conceptual graphs, a method of mapping
different ontology representations onto a common framework developed by John
Sowa[1]. Ideally we should be working at a higher level of abstraction e.g
using DAML+OIL[2] as a basis for knowledge representation rather than RDF. 

For more details see

[1] Sowa, J. F. Knowledge Representation, Brooks/Cole, 2000. ISBN:
0-534-94965

[2] About DAML, http://www.daml.org/about.html

[3] Chinese Room arguement, http://www.ptproject.ilstu.edu/pt/chinovrv.htm

> The problem is in XML serialization of RDF. 
> Why don't we think to adopt another XML serialization of RDF for
> CC/PP, or for general purposes? 

Currently it is very difficult to introduce changes to CC/PP i) because we
(the CC/PP Working Group) are constrained by the charter ii) we are at a
stage in the process where it is not possible for people to submit comments.
We are currently trying to move the CC/PP structure and vocabulary document
to candidate rec, to overcome problem ii) but I would like to see problem i)
addressed as soon as possible. 

regards

Mark H. Butler, PhD
Research Scientist                HP Labs Bristol
mark-h_butler@hp.com
Internet: http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/marbut/

Received on Thursday, 6 June 2002 05:51:30 UTC