Re: Uniform access to descriptions

At 8:58 AM +0100 4/9/08, Dan Brickley wrote:
>Hi Pat,
>
>Pat Hayes wrote:
>>At 7:52 PM +0100 4/8/08, Xiaoshu Wang wrote:
>>>Pat Hayes wrote:
>>>>At 5:54 PM +0100 4/8/08, Xiaoshu Wang wrote:
>>>>>Stuart,
>>>>>>Wrt to that resolution... a 303 response means *nothing*... if 
>>>>>>you happen to follow the redirection and find something useful 
>>>>>>about the thing you originally inquired of, that you trust and 
>>>>>>are prepared to stick in your reasoning engine, then you win - 
>>>>>>if not, of itself, the redirection has told you nothing/means 
>>>>>>nothing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>200 tells you that the response convey as representation of the 
>>>>>>(state of?) referenced thing.
>>>>>>
>>>>>If this is what TAG accepts, i..e, 200=*representation of* as 
>>>>>oppose to "resource of".  I have no problem and would be happy 
>>>>>with it.  My perception is that TAG is recommending either 
>>>>>explicitly or implicitly the latter viewpoint.
>>>>
>>>>Gentlemen, please both of you speak very slowly and carefully at 
>>>>this point, as a precise understanding here is critical.
>>>>
>>>>Stuart, did you mean that the response conveys/ a/ 
>>>>representation/ in the webarch sense/ of the referenced thing? It 
>>>>would be helpful if every time the word 'represent' and its 
>>>>cognates are used in this very special sense, such usage were 
>>>>explicitly flagged, as it can very quickly lead to 
>>>>incomprehension when understood more broadly (as it is almost 
>>>>everywhere else in the English-speaking world.)
>>>>
>>>>(Xiaoshu: from which it follows that in this case, the referenced 
>>>>thing in question must be something that/ has/ a 
>>>>webarch-representation; so, in this case, it/ cannot/ be some 
>>>>other kind of thing that cannot, by virtue of its very nature, 
>>>>have such a (webarch-)representation; so, to refer to such things 
>>>>- such, as we now might say,/ non-information resource things/ - 
>>>>requires something other than a 200 response. Thus goes the 
>>>>http-range-14 logic, as I understand it. Note that in order to 
>>>>follow this, all we need to know is that there are things which 
>>>>(a) cannot have a representation in the webarch sense but (b) 
>>>>that we might wish to refer to with a URI.
>(aside: perhaps 'http(s) URI' was meant here, rather than just 'URI'?)
>>>>Their exact nature need not be specified, but I believe that the 
>>>>language of 'information resource' boils down to  an attempt to 
>>>>characterize this category of [/things that cannot be 
>>>>webarch-represented by a byte stream/]. And, centrally important, 
>>>>not having a representation in the webarch sense does/ not/ mean 
>>>>not having any kind of representation, being unrepresentable, or 
>>>>not being describable. The webarch sense of 'representation' is 
>>>>very specialized and narrow.)
>>>Pat, as I have detailed argued here 
>>>http://dfdf.inesc-id.pt/tr/web-arch.  There can have only one 
>>>consistent interpretation, that is: there is no so-called 
>>>"information resource".
>>
>>The key issue is not what is an information resource, but what 
>>isn't. So, in your document you ask, what makes the claim "A person 
>>is not an information resource" true? And it seems to me that this 
>>at least has a clear answer: because a person is/ not/ something 
>>whose essential characteristics can be conveyed in a message.
>I don't know what 'essential characteristics' are. Really. What are 
>the (erm...) characteristics of the 'essential characteristics' of 
>some [named type of] thing? Who gets to decide?

I'm reading 'essential characteristics' as meaning, roughly, what in 
OntoClean are called 'rigid properties' and what are often called 
'essential properties', meaning properties or aspects of a thing 
which it has necessarily, i.e. which if it didn't have those it would 
cease to be what it is. Among my essential characteristics, for 
example, is my being human; or if you prefer, mammalian. And although 
we have the word "human" in English, its impossible to convey the 
property of being human in a message.

>Are you saying that this is actually clear, or 'clear within the 
>world of the http-range-14 resolution'?

Well, clear within the world of the TAG, maybe. Its a hell of a lot 
better than the old days when everything was a resource.

Pat

>cheers,
>
>Dan
>
>--
>http://danbri.org/


-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC		(850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973   home
40 South Alcaniz St.	(850)202 4416   office
Pensacola			(850)202 4440   fax
FL 32502			(850)291 0667    cell
http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes      phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us
http://www.flickr.com/pathayes/collections