(reification => closed models) ?

With regard to the recent philosophical debate around rdfs:range and 
the possibility of closed RDF models, doesn't reification require 
closure of the statement model?

In other words,

s1 ---(rdf:subject) ---> the sky
s1 ---(rdf:predicate)---> is colored
s1 ---(rdf:object)---> blue
s1 ---(rdf:type)--->rdf:statement

reifies a statement.

Allowing the further  assertion
s1 ---(rdf:object)---> red

produces an existential muddle about the statement s1.

So it seems that the RDF model, which includes reification, 
implicitly declares some models as closed, or at least protected. 
This is certainly a useful property, and an explicit recognition of 
this would greatly help to make RDF more intuitive and useful.

Eric
Eric Hellman
Openly Informatics, Inc.
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Received on Saturday, 23 September 2000 15:32:27 UTC