Re: Anonymous resource names -versus- variables

At 03:54 PM 5/4/00 -0400, Dan Brickley wrote:
>Whatever deep philosophical approach we take to question of whether
>properties are really "of" a resource, it strikes me that in the case
>above, we're certainly talking about the same resource. A 3rd mention of
>that resource which _did_ provide a URI is still talking about the same
>resource. Now if we ask whether the resource is of rdf:type Anonymous,
>that's not a sensible question. It depends on too much context.
>However if we ask whether some software agent or RDF database util:stores
>some web:uri for that resource, that seems to me to be a more sensible
>question. So I'm not averse to expressing these things in terms of RDF
>properties instead of as a URI scheme hack, I just don't think the model
>you propose is intuitive, since the meaning of being of rdf:type Anonymous
>is highly contextual, and you're not exposing that context in the model.

This sparks a thought for me:  RDF recognizes two "layers" of statements:
   statements
   statements about statements, via reification

Your comments suggest another facet of RDF usage:
   statements about representations of statements


I sense that some discussion of RDF gets mired because of failure to 
distinguish between statements, and some representation thereof.  I regard 
this as a vital distinction when considering trust representations (an 
immediate concern for CC/PP).

I regard RDF in terms of some homogeneous collection of statements (and am 
thinking about building an experimental system that reflects this 
view).  Specific statements are added to the collection via documents that 
contain representations --in XML or whatever-- but any meaning associated 
with a statement must stand when a particular representation in a 
particular document is stripped away.

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
(GK@ACM.ORG)

Received on Friday, 5 May 2000 06:35:39 UTC