RE: Disambiguation; keeping the "U" in "URI" (& Documents, Cars, Hills, and Valleys)

>Manos Batsis wrote,
>> There is no ambiguity, just incomplete semantics.
>
>Incomplete semantics is one of the sources of ambiguity. Filling out
>the semantics to eliminate ambiguity involves specifying the context
>of use sufficiently to eliminate all but (at most) one candiate
>referent.

I think the key may lie in Thomas' remark earlier about 'it only pushing it
up a level'. Up a level we have a lot more power.

What if we consider the URI to represent a *set* then the assertions :

A http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html has long hair
B http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html is hosted in Florida

can be made 'in the wild', in that A & B refer to a different element in the
set http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html

If we wish to reason with such statements, then locally we can pull out the
element of the set of interest, and give it a local unique identifier (if
necessary).

If we want to harvest assertions about  http://www.markbaker.ca/index.html
the person, then we look for those statements containing this URI, but only
with predicates that apply to or on a person.

This approach disambiguates (is that really a word?) the URI without
breaking current usage, and allows reasoning on it. It stays Uniform,
Universal and Unique and becomes Useful.

Now shoot me down in flames...

Cheers,
Danny.

Received on Thursday, 25 April 2002 06:20:32 UTC