Re: MISC: Internet Media Type registration: proposed TAG finding

At 04:13 PM 5/24/02 -0500, Dan Connolly wrote:
>That seems counter to common sense. That seems like saying
>an IOU document
>
>         "I owe you one dollar"
>
>doesn't mean that I could pay you with 4 quarters, since
>the relationship between a dollar and quarters isn't
>specified in the IOU.

I think that's exactly right, even if it is counter to common sense.

In the absence of some *additional* information that 4 quarters are 
equivalent to a dollar for the purposes of settling a debt, I'd say a 
settlement with 4 quarters is not justified by the above statement.

(So we have some common background facts, contexts maybe, ... but that's 
another discussion.)

...

[later]

I see you've already responded to a similar comment:

>Hmm... that's one way to think of 'RDF inferences'.
>It's not one that appeals to me.

It seems to me you're introducing some new concept here that has not been 
discussed, and is certainly not part of RDF as currently defined.

I've seen this kind of debate before, but I really had no idea that folks 
would seriously want to claim that without some explicit expression from 
some source that four quarters are equivalent to a dollar, that an RDF 
reasoner could conclude that a payment of four quarters would discharge the 
IOU.

And RDF alone has insufficient power to make such an assertion.

> > > I can think of two agents (cwm and Euler) that
> > > do a lot more than simple entailment, when
> > > asked to. I think of them as RDF agents.
> >
> > They are not.
>
>Er... I accept that as your opinion.
>I disagree.

It seems we need to define what is meant by an "RDF agent".  In particular, 
is it entitled to draw inferences that are not licensed by RDF?

I should stop here, because I'm pretty sure others can and will make the 
same points more compellingly.

#g


-------------------
Graham Klyne
<GK@NineByNine.org>

Received on Saturday, 25 May 2002 16:38:37 UTC