Re: SW, meaning and reference

At 04:10 PM 9/11/01 -0500, pat hayes wrote:
[...]
>>If so, is it reasonable/useful to think about a partial theory of 
>>reference which sets out some properties of the relationship between a 
>>name and the concept(s) it denotes in a Web context, without attempting 
>>to define how an actual relationship is determined?
>
>Yes, absolutely, that would be a good start.
>
>>I am thinking that such a partial theory might, for example, describe 
>>properties of such relationships in a Web/Internet environment, maybe 
>>capturing ideas like:
>>  What are the observable properties of a "resource"
>
>Why 'observable'?

Ah...  I am presuming the existence of some function(s) that can be applied 
to the thing denoted.  In the web, this might be an HTTP GET operation.

So I'm trying to suggest that there may be some commonly available 
operations for which some common abstraction can be defined.  The partial 
theory of reference might be able to tell us something about the properties 
of a resource in relation to such an abstraction (what can we say about the 
result of an abstract GET applied to a resource?  e.g. does the result 
obtained change from GET to GET?).

>>  What can be said about the relationship between a URI and "resource"
>
>Ie more than that the first denotes the second, right?

Example: an unresolved debate is (AFAIK) whether two different URIs can 
denote the same resource.

>>  What, if anything, is the difference between a "resource" as used by
>>    RDF and a resource as used by the Web in general
>>    (esp w.r.t. fragment identifiers)
>
>I would like to hear more about this in any case.

Me too ;-)

#g


------------
Graham Klyne
(GK@ACM.ORG)

Received on Tuesday, 11 September 2001 16:17:47 UTC