- From: Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com>
- Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:12:31 -0400
- To: www-tag@w3.org
In http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jul/0158.html, Tim Berners-Lee writes: >...we are not analyzing a world, we are building it. We are not >experimental philosophers, we are philosophical engineers. In http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Jul/0203.html, Tim Berners-Lee writes: >No. We are defining the semantic web NOT to work like natural >language, but to work like mathematics... It is my hope that the TAG is aware that most engineering projects, while they have mathematical foundations, also take into account the uncertainty of the world in which they operate, especially the human world. Engineers who build systems which come into frequent contact with humans have an especially difficult job, as they have to account for the many variables that humans can introduce to projects which seemed so simple in their absence. The current discussion between Pat Hayes and Tim Berners-Lee feels to me like a conversation between an engineer who appreciates the interactions between his work and humans, and an engineer who wants the people to get out of the way of the good work he'd like to do strictly mathematically - as if machine-to-machine communications permits or even requires excluding human concerns from the process. The familiar Web has done an excellent job of dealing with human factors. I'd encourage the TAG to reflect on how best to carry that success to the Semantic Web. I don't think that's a matter so much of experimental philosophy as of pragmatic philosophy, stripped of Platonic visions but hopefully still useful. -- Simon St.Laurent Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets Errors, errors, all fall down! http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org
Received on Friday, 18 July 2003 14:12:38 UTC