- From: patrick hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 12:12:54 -0500
- To: "Seth Russell" <seth@robustai.net>
- Cc: <www-rdf-comments@w3.org>
>From: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@research.bell-labs.com> > >> Suppose an agent is given >> >> <ex:Student> <rdfs:subClassOf> <ex:Person> . >> <ex:John> <rdf:type> <ex:Student> . >> <rdfs:subClassOf> <rdf:type> <rdf:Property> . >> <rdfs:subClassOf> <rdfs:domain> <rdfs:Class> . >> <rdfs:subClassOf> <rdfs:range> <rdfs:Class> . >> <rdfs:Class> <rdf:type> <rdfs:Class> . >> >> and responds that it entails >> >> <ex:John> <rdf:type> <ex:Person> . >> >> This agent is not an RDF reasoner (is not doing RDF). Its reasoning is >> unsound in RDF. The agent may be an RDFS reasoner, but it is not doing >> RDF. > >I agree, given *only* the assertions in the rdf namespace, there is no way >that an automated agent *could* arrive at that entailment. But given the >logical interpretation of certain rdfs:comments, WHAT logical interpretation of comments? Those comments are written in English, not in any formal logic. So until someone comes up with a model theory for English (and incorporates it into a Web language spec) they have no logical interpretation. (Isn't this obvious? That's why we call them 'comments'. If they were comments in a piece of Java code, nobody would expect the Java VM to be able to read them and take their meaning into account.) Bear in mind that this entire SW game is supposed to be putting stuff on web pages that can be used by software reasoning agents, not by human readers. > it certainly can be >entailed. I seems to me that any automated agent that attempts to arrive >at conclusions about assertions, without knowing any rules that apply to its >predicate, would always be going beyond the data given. No, that is precisely what it cannot do. The *automated* agent only knows the 'rules' that are specified by the formal part of the language spec and the formal language it can read. Comments are invisible to it. It *cannot* go beyond the data given. Pat -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Thursday, 30 May 2002 13:12:48 UTC