Re: Reification quoting in RDF/N3 was: A note comparing Conceptual Graphs and RDF/Semantic Web

Yes and no... Yes we can identify through descriptions as well as URIs;
but no, contrary to  http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer there are a
bunch of propblems (mostly involving quotation and trust) that imho this
doesn't entirely work for.

The problem I was getting at in
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001Jan/0052.html
was that if we pretend all things have a universally agreed and  widely
known URI,  identification strategies when dealing with quoted RDF aren't
a big deal.  When we go real world and indulge (as we'll have to) in
identification-through-description
as per foaf/mbox discussion you mention and Pat Hayes earlier essay on
this topic, we get into a pickle wr.t. quotation. Reason is that RDF's
flattening of everything down to one level makes it rather fiddly to
distinguish a description at the quoted level ('john believed mary's
flatmate had a mailbox of ...') to a description at the quoting level,
where the expression is used merely to pick out an individual.

Dan

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Sean B. Palmer wrote:

> > > @prefix : <#>
> > > :bill :loves :jane
> >
> > Sure. Now are we giving them a URI before we serialize this stuff
> > up and send it on its way,
>
> Serialize and send on its way? "Bill (the URI)" would be described in the
> file itself, or linked to a schema URI: in other words, something that
> asserts that the uri <#bill> is a representation for a human... from the N3
> primer:-
>
>      "Not everything has a URI, as you can talk about something
>      by just using its properties. But using a URI allows other
>      documents and systems to easily reuse your information."
>      - http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/Primer
>
> We just had these conversations about representing people by their
> mailboxes on RDF IG... that's what I'm taking my cue from.
>
> > or are we giving incoming string literals URIs?
>
> We're tying properties to a URI, that's all. The URI itself isn't
> important: it doesn't need to exist - we're just talking about it. When you
> talk about it, you talk about something that has the same properties as
> Bill, e.g. :bill = Bill. Then, other SW machines can process those
> some"thing" with those same properties by effering to that URI. It wouldn't
> matter if all of this was on Bill's home machine, but it's on the Web. The
> Digital Signatrues idea runs parallel and crosses this. At some point we'll
> need Bill to sign these properties if they are to believed I guess.
>
> --
> Kindest Regards,
> Sean B. Palmer
> @prefix : <http://infomesh.net/2001/01/n3terms/#> .
> [ :name "Sean B. Palmer" ] has :homepage <http://infomesh.net/sbp/> .
>

Received on Friday, 19 January 2001 06:58:32 UTC