- From: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 09:35:25 -0500
- To: wangxiao@musc.edu
- Cc: Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org>, "Williams, Stuart (HP Labs, Bristol)" <skw@hp.com>, Jonathan Rees <jar@creativecommons.org>, "www-tag@w3.org WG" <www-tag@w3.org>, Phil Archer <parcher@icra.org>
- Message-Id: <p06230905c42282a57d7d@[192.168.1.2]>
At 2:51 PM +0100 4/9/08, Xiaoshu Wang wrote: >Pat Hayes wrote: >>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. >But, what is the rigid property of being a document? Exactly that: i.e. being a document. I can recognize documents when I see them. >How to convey "the property of being document"? You send the text of the document in such a way that it can be displayed. Then I look at it and I see that it is a document. This assumes of course that digitally encoded documents count as documents, which they now do. 50 years ago, they probably would not have, but cultural attitudes change towards such things. >If you answer is "document is what is digitizable". Then, you have >a subclass of document - digital document but not the document >itself. Again, a cultural shift of perspective. In current usage, it seems that 'paper document' is a subclass of 'document', the latter including all kinds of digital entities which never make it to paper. > Then, there is a subclass of digital Human, which is digitizable too. digital human?? Ive never met one yet. >Take gene as another example, Is gene an IR? It should be not >according to what you want to define. We can certainly very >faithfully digitize gene's sequence, yes? A gene sequence might be an IR, but not the actual gene. Genes are real things, not mere sequences: they have biological consequences, they cause things to happen. >The issue in the web is not about defining those properties. It is >about communication. That is how we communicate our viewpoint about >certain resource from its digitized subclass (representation). Um.. don't confuse a digital object with a digital representation of an object. Many non-digital things can have digital representations (though not webarch:representations). > The purpose of the web is not about how to digitize resource but to >communicate resource through its digitized form. Do you mean, communicate the actual resource, or communicate something about a resource? Pat -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
Received on Wednesday, 9 April 2008 14:36:06 UTC