Re: Conceptual Graphs, N3, RDF, Semantic Web

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Tim Berners-Lee wrote:
> 
> Thank you, Frank!
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From:  "Frank Manola" <fmanola@mitre.org>
> Sent:  Wednesday, January 17, 2001 5:45 PM
> Subj:  Re: Conceptual Graphs, N3, RDF, Semantic Web
> 
> > I believe the definition of "reification" intended in the
> > context of RDF is along the lines of McCarthy's, found at
> >
> > http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/generality/node6.html
> > to wit:
> > [..]
> > This process of making objects out of sentences and other entities
> > is called reification.
> 
> That ws indeed my sense,
> perhaps not the sense
> of some philosophers
> or psychologists,
> but this is the
> RDF logic list,
> and this is the
> sense in which
> RDF uses it.

Tim,

What you have just written is extremely instructive --
once I have found a fitting angle to reflect on it! --
you indicated yourself, by means of the index "my",
as being the possessor of the apt and proper sense
of the sign-spelt-string "reification" in question.
You asserted your right as a free interpretive agent
to use this hidebound and intellectually inert object
to say what you mean to say and to ploy it in the way
that you see fit.  By way of support for your daring
act of independence from the conventions and party
lines of others to create your own conventions and
to throw your own parties, you wisely adverted to
your local "community of interpretation" (COI),
which the actuality of your own person indexes,
and which, in turn, establishes the context of
your acts of meaning just what you mean within.
Was there a hint of insinuation or intimation that
this one: this community, this context, this sense,
is a cut above, or at least a cut apart, from the
many COI mistresses pursued by the other suitors?

In doing all this, you do what is perfectly natural
and quite understandable, and I support with my life
and my sacred honor your right to do so -- and yet,
to be fair, I must do the same for every other one
who has the sense to use signs, or might some day,
some way.  And so how will I keep track of it all?
AI!  There's the rub!
 
> (In N3, if
> 
> :sky :color :blue  .
> 
> is the "sentence", then
> 
> { :sky :color :blue }
> 
> is the "object".
>
> In the RDF model, this is represented by a set of sentences which describe it.)

I am still at the beginning of trying to learn your language ...

> I obviously have gone to the wrong
> cocktail parties, not having seen
> the word being used to impress
> the impressoinable ;-)

Oh, I was just talking about a host
of other people that I once knew --
If the sloe gin don't fizz,
don't drink it ...

Cheers, hic et nunc,

Jon Awbrey

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Received on Thursday, 18 January 2001 00:49:48 UTC