I spent the last week trying to convince a group of scheme enthusiasts to
build a "database for s-expressions", which, after all is said and done, is
all that the Atomspace is. This idea went over like a lead balloon.
The primary stumbling block seems to be conceptual. People can visualize a
database of rows and columns -- basically SQL -- very conventional. They
can visualize a database of key-value pairs -- basically, noSQL. Also very
popular. The idea of a JSON database is now common enough. JSON is, after
all, a nested, hierarchical key-value store, having the form {name1:value1,
name2:value2, ...} -- you can think of name1, name2, .. as being like
column labels, and (value1, value2, ...) as being rows. The biggest
difference between tables and JSON is that tables are fixed-width, with
fixed column labels, while JSON is free-form: every JSON expression carries
it's own labels. And, since it's hierarchical, each value can be another
JSON expression, nesting arbitrarily deep. It's a labelled tree.
When I suggested that one can store just plain s-expressions -- i.e. just
(value1, value2, ...) without the labels ... an unlabeled tree ... this
seemed to make people's heads explode. So my efforts, it seems, were for
naught. Perhaps I planted a seed, though.
The goal of a generic, agnostic database of s-expressions is to overcome
the marketing problem the AtomSpace has. If some other organization could
explain to the world what that is, and provide agnostic, generic API's, I
think that would be a good thing. However, based on the cold reception I
got, I'm thinking it may take another 10 years before the idea catches on.
(The reception I got was "why don't you use JSON?" so I had to explain the
problem with the labels. Once that was clear, the next suggestion was "why
don't you use Prolog/Datalog?" I tried to explain how prolog is limited to
crisp true/false values, and how prolog does not allow trees - it's not
hierarchical the way s-expressions and JSON are - but this argument did not
seem to gain traction. Somehow, just saying "it's a database of
s-expressions" is not enough to convey the idea. People stumble on this.
And yet, that's all that it is...)
I'm saying this out loud, right here, right now, because if you are reading
this, and you are thinking to yourself "I never quite understood what the
atomspace is" -- well, it's that. It's a database of s-expressions. It's
difficult to take the next step, until this first basic idea becomes
clear. I want this first, basic idea to become clear to everyone.
As to Hyperon -- Ben, I skimmed through everything written on Hyperon, and
it seems (to me) like it could be "easily" implemented within the existing
AtomSpace framework. I think this would be the right direction to move in,
but I don't think that is possible until there is some sort of shared
understanding about how things work, about how things could work, about
what needs to be done. Reaching that shared understanding may require real
work and hard thinking -- there's no magic wand of sudden enlightenment --
but its doable. And it can be done with, ahhh talking and email. I very
strongly encourage discussion. Let the sun shine in.
-- Linas
On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 3:24 PM Ben Goertzel <[email protected]> wrote:
> https://wiki.opencog.org/w/Hyperon
>
> On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 1:39 AM Amirouche Boubekki
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Is there a page that gathers all the publications regarding the new
> design ?
> >
> > --
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> .
>
>
>
> --
> Ben Goertzel, PhD
> http://goertzel.org
>
> “He not busy being born is busy dying" -- Bob Dylan
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