- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 00:24:59 -0500
- To: "Seth Russell" <seth@robustai.net>
- Cc: www-rdf-logic@w3.org
>From: "Pat Hayes" <phayes@ai.uwf.edu> > >> >Ok, I used the wrong word again. The question I am trying to ask in the >> >broadest terms is: What difference will the MT make?. It seems to me >that >> >the MT is supposed to tell us what a graph ~means~ >> >> Say 'could mean', then yes. >> >> >and even provides an >> >algorithm to determine that ~meaning~. >> >> NO! Interpretations need not be computable. (Some of them are, but >> that's not the point.) >> >> > But this ~interpretation thingy~ can >> >never be manifested inside a computer (can it?), >> >> Some can, some can't. > >Which is where you loose me:( If we are making a theory that the >computer can use, then, me thinks, being able to manifest the interpretation >of it inside the computer is a *requirement*. No. An interpretation is simply a description of one way that the thing in the computer - the RDF graph, in our case - can relate to a world. The point of the model theory is to be able to prove that certain properties of this relationship are preserved under various operations on those things in the computer. The operations are computable (eg the closure rules for RDFS), but the relationship to the world need not be, and usually isn't. The entire theory is couched in mathematical terms so that we can do the proofs, but it itself is not supposed to be computable or to be manipulated by computers: it is a mathematical theory for use by human beings (us) which refers to - is about- the formal computable things. Pat Hayes -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Tuesday, 16 October 2001 01:25:04 UTC