- From: Peter F. Patel-Schneider <pfps@research.bell-labs.com>
- Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 06:18:58 -0400
- To: jborden@mediaone.net
- Cc: phayes@ai.uwf.edu, www-rdf-logic@w3.org
From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@mediaone.net> Subject: RE: A plea for peace. was: RE: DAML+OIL (March 2001) released: a correction Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 23:09:57 -0400 [...] > No one argues the utility of logic, yet logic systems have not achieved > widespread usage over the last several decades. I beg to differ. One of the great successes of computer science is the development and widespread adoption of relational data bases, which are logics, or near enough, in my eyes, for the purposes of this debate. To further this line of argument, relational data bases had, from the beginning, a full-fledged semantics, and, in my opion, would have fallen flat on their faces if they did not have same. > My view of the reason for this, partly based on personal experience in the > field, is that logic systems traditionally operate on a closed world model > (and realize that I am using english terms here). The real problems aren't > in the logic, rather in the assumptions made in modeling the real world. > Those assumptions cause subtle but real problems that propagate through the > system. We need to interact with the world as we find it, not as we model > it. Again, relational data bases are built on a closed world assumption, and they have been quite successful. Further, a big difference between relational data bases and most logics is precisely that most logics operate on an open world assumption. [...] > What interests me about this new experiment is that it will not be self > contained and while that will introduce new and perhaps difficult problems > it will also make things interesting. Agreed, there are lots of interesting and difficult issues in the web. All the more reason to make sure that we are starting with a firm foundation. > -Jonathan Peter F. Patel-Schneider Bell Labs Research
Received on Wednesday, 4 April 2001 06:20:13 UTC