Re: definitionOf

individual vs. species
An individual is a single concrete existent, e.g.: Jon Hanna
A concept is an abstract group of two or more similar individual members, e.g.: the RDF interest group.
Species is a concept; genus is a concept; species is a subconcept of genus; e.g., man is a species of the genus animal.
============ 
Dick McCullough 
knowledge := man do identify od existent done
knowledge haspart list of proposition

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jon Hanna 
  To: RDF-Interest 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 9:26 AM
  Subject: RE: definitionOf



  > The document http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-rdf-mt-20021112/
  > says in Appendix A, "RDF Axioms":
  >     rdf:type(?x,?y)  iff  ?y(?x)
  > or in my alternate KR syntax
  >     $x has rdf:type = $y  iff  $x isa* $y
  > $x was not restricted to Individuals.
  > Note: my "isa" is the "union" of "isu" and "iss", i.e., it is
  > valid for $x which is either an individual or a species.

  How do you seperate individuals from species, without regard to a particular
  context?

  > 2. expressing "definitionOf" in triples
  > Deferred.
  > Remarks:
  > a. I identified "definitionOf" as a necessary property to describe
  > reality -- the human method of concept-formation.
  > b. "definitionOf" is a ternary property.
  > c. Is the purpose of OWL to describe reality, or to see what can be
  > done with binary properties?

  a. Whether this cannot currently be done may require analysis (I am neither
  qualified to do so, nor in any temper to attempt, but we obviously need more
  than one person looking at the question).

  b & c. The purpose of OWL is surely to describe reality *in a way that is of
  practical use*. Triples have practical advantages; small units can be dealt
  with by computers efficiently, particularly in distributed environments, if
  at the cost of occasional verbosity for somethings that would more naturally
  be a single statement. Besides which the triples don't come from OWL, the
  are there already in the underlying RDF layer - OWL can't change that.

  My question here is mainly practical. There are a couple of different
  obvious ways of expressing a ternary relationship in triples, I was
  inquiring as to which you'd suggest.