Re: issues to be resolved before last call (rdfms-assertion)

From: "Jos De_Roo" <jos.deroo@agfa.com>
Subject: Re: issues to be resolved before last call (rdfms-assertion)
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 01:30:01 +0100

> 
> > > I think there are other points and I'm borrowing the
> > > following from Pat as I couldn't express it better...
> > >
> > > The point is that publication of RDF, when considered
> > > as a social act, constitutes a publication of some content
> > > which is defined by whatever normal *social* conditions
> > > are used by the publishers of any terms in the RDF to
> > > define the meanings of those terms, even if those meanings
> > > and definitions are not accessible to the formal semantics
> > > of RDF; and, moreover, those meanings are *preserved* under
> > > any formally sanctioned inference processes.
> >
> > Here is the very, very scary part.  Anyone publishing any RDF, even if the
> > publishing is being done by an agent that only understands RDF formal
> > meaning, is considered to import the entirely of the social meaning of a
> > bunch of other RDF documents.  How can any organization employ RDF agents
> > under this extraordinarily strong reading of RDF meaning?
> 
> such RDF meanings can always be be proved and explained back to
> their roots and those are held responsible for what they assert!
> (plus that making information explicit removes it from the context)

Huh?  How can they be *proved*?  What system will do the proving?

The example in RDF Concepts indicates that the agent that combines
information is responsible for any consequences of the social meaning of
whatever it combines, even if the agent has no possibility of understanding
this social meaning.   It appears to me, futhermore, that the source of
this social meaning could be completely outside the World-Wide Web, even to
the point of being in the mind of some deceased person.

> Jos De Roo, AGFA http://www.agfa.com/w3c/jdroo/

Peter F. Patel-Schneider
Bell Labs Research
Lucent Technologies

Received on Sunday, 19 January 2003 06:50:38 UTC