Derek, Shooting? No. I agree with you. And I disagree.
I think that there are clinical informaticians that know, implicitly or explicitly, about semantics, about language and the philosophical aspects. At least clinicians and nurses do (and most patients and other people) since they communicate using voice, writings and gestures. The problem is that technicians do not understand semantic interoperability. And I must say that many informaticians are actually technicians without any understanding of semantics. Gerard On 21, Apr, 2009, at 16:17 , Derek Meyer wrote: > Dear List People, > > Another view, and my two (euro) cents, for what they are worth:- > > There are many philosophical difficulties in the concept of semantic > interoperability which technology cannot address. Put simply, semantic > interoperability requires an agreement on meaning, and meaning is > not a > 'thing'. Semantic interoperability requires uses of a system to think > in the same way - or at least in mutually understandable ways - and > informaticians do not (yet) have the power to change the ways people > think. > > So semantic interoperability is a kind of philosopher's stone. The > search for the original philosopher's stone, which could turn base > metal > into gold, simply showed that alchemists misunderstood chemistry and > sub-atomic physics. Maybe the search for semantic interoperability > simply shows that informaticians misunderstand linguistics and the > nature of knowledge. > > OK - you can shoot me down now...... > > Derek. -- <private> -- Gerard Freriks, MD Huigsloterdijk 378 2158 LR Buitenkaag The Netherlands T: +31 252544896 M: +31 620347088 E: gfrer at luna.nl Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin 11 Nov 1755 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.openehr.org/mailman/private/openehr-technical_lists.openehr.org/attachments/20090421/9a5b3072/attachment.html>
