RE: [httpRange-14] What do HTTP URIs Identify?

Understood.  I won't endeavor to elaborate on the 
reference.  It takes up too much space on www-tag, 
but I believe we understand each other in this 
exchange by coming to emphasize the role of the 
interpretant in the architecture, although, it 
is not RDF or RDDL that provides meaning.  These 
are the forms of expression chosen by the authority 
to represent the meaning.  IMV, meaning will always be at least 
one step beyond the technology and the expression. 
This is not a bad thing; it implies risk with 
respect to acting on choice of choices.  That's life.

All the web or the semantic web does is provide a 
means to reduce risk probabilistically; it can't 
eliminate it.  Nor should it.  What fun would that be? :-)

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Borden [mailto:jonathan@openhealth.org]

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> I agree although one might want to ensure the understanding
> it is possible to use other means of representing the interpretive
expression.
> Otherwise:
>
> "... meaning is created within semiosis and, as I have argued, semiosis
and evolution are identical in this context. Meaning is created whenever a
sign and an object is merged together and the relation is maintained by an
interpretant."
>
> http://www.library.utoronto.ca/see/SEED/Vol1-2/Thellefsen.htm


I was explicit to say that the meaning of a URI was defined by the RDF
graph, or by an OWL 'ontology' at the URI, when the media type was:
_application/rdf+xml_ (.. or for example application/owl+rdf+xml if some
sort of RDF subsetting were ever to come into effect...)

Pat Hayes and Guha have proposed a framework to represent various model
theories for semantic web languages (Lbase), and this at first look, seems
to be an excellent start toward a coherent framework for integrating various
'meanings' on the Web.

I've briefly looked at your reference (above) but don't immediately
understand the implications for 'semiotics' and the Semantic Web, or the
current Web, but perhaps such a semantics might apply given a specific media
type and as such if the semantics can be developed as an extension of Lbase,
then it might apply to a given media type (or set of types).

In terms of the web architecture, it seems reasonable that at least for a
given set of media types, that the meaning of the _resource_ identified by
an HTTP URI is defined according to the range of interpretations defined by
a specific type of representation referenced by the URI. That's a mouthful,
but it means that for a URI which represents itself as application/rdf+xml,
the meaning is defined according to http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-mt/ .

RDDL already says essentially this (at least IMHO):  for namespace names
which resolve to a RDDL document, the namespace is defined according to
RDDL. RDDL is readily xslt'd into RDF, so one could define the meaning of
such a namespace URI as the RDF meaning of the graph obtained by
transforming RDDL -> RDF.

Received on Thursday, 8 August 2002 16:31:56 UTC