Re: does RDF require understanding all 82 URI schemes?

Perhaps the universal web of trust starts with every human being having
their own URI.  The metamodel itself must be subject to and derived from the
web of trust.  As an entity I declare those other entities I wish to trust.
An entity can make statements about other objects.  An entity can also have
a locally defined metamodel, which can be built on top of the metamodels
published by other, trusted entities.

Any discussion of RDF in the wider (universal) context must realize that
differing viewpoints require different contexts.  We should be able to move
from viewpoint to viewpoint by moving from context to context.  Viewpoints
can contrast and contradict each other, ripple like pebbles thrown in a
pond, interacting and colliding, disappearing after a time.  We require an
information superstructure that gives the semantic web the same tolerance
for damage that the internet itself possesses on a packet level.

We should worry less about the representation of knowledge, and more about a
stable and robust set of rules for resolving conflict and compositing
multiple knowledge and meta-knowledge sources.

I wonder what patterns of information would survive and prosper in this
memetic greenhouse.

Ross Judson


> All of these problems arise even with something -- a living human
> being -- that has an obvious, legally-enforceable identity.  Many
> (most?) of the things we'll want to describe in a data-based Web --
> ideas, historical people/places/things, etc. -- don't even have that.
>

Received on Monday, 12 February 2001 14:15:43 UTC