On 11/12/10 9:03 AM, William Waites wrote:
On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 08:40:14AM -0500, Patrick Durusau wrote:
Semantic ambiguity isn't going to go away. It is part and parcel of the
very act of communication.
[...]
Witness the lack of uniform semantics in the linked data community over
something as common as sameAs. As the linked data community expands, so
are the number of interpretations of sameAs.
Why can't we fashion solutions for how we are rather than wishing for
solution for how we aren't?
I was at a lecture by Dave Robertson [0] the other day where
he talked about some of the ideas behind one of his current
projects [1]. Particularly relevant was the idea of completely
abandoning any attempts at global semantics and instead working
on making sure the semantics are clear on a local communication
channel (as I understood it).
Yes, I am can express what I want in my Data Space. You don't have to
make adopt my inference rules, likewise, you can't stop me from having
them. It's my data space after all :-)
My Zebra might be your Stallion, that's just a claim in my data space,
you don't have to believe it etc.. Luckily, I've lived in a number of
countries, so appreciation of multiple world views is hard wired into my
essence. I'll debate you, but still fundamentally understant that we
should always be able to "agree to disagree".
So maybe that would mean a different meaning for sameAs in
different datasets, and that's just fine as long as the reader
is aware of that and fasions some transformation from their
notion of sameAs to their peer's, mutatis mutandis for other
predicates and classes.
Yes, which is why we have the following capabilities in our platform
(Virtuoso):
1. Named Graphs
2. Backward- or Forward-Chained Inference capability
3. Conditional application of Inference Rules via SPARQL query process
pragmas.
Its also why, when we add linksets to the Virtuoso instance hosting
DBpedia, they end up in their specific Named Graphs, at least until
there is general consensus re. addition to the main DBpedia Named Graph.
Thus, people and user agents have access to DBpedia data via a variety
of context lenses.
In some ways this is similar to how we use language. If I'm
talking to a computer scientist I'll use a different but
overlapping sub-language of English than if I'm talking to the
postman.
Yep!
And once you speak more than one pure language or vernacular you
experience this in full glory.
If I'm talking to a non-native English speaker I'll
modify my speech so as to be more easily understood. Around
here, "tea" means "supper" but a short distance to the South
it more likely means a snack with cakes and cucumber sandwiches.
Some Africans don't see a Zebra or Horse as being different. Thus, they
would refer to both as Horses. That doesn't make that a fact for the
whole world.
The important thing is a context of communication which modifies
-- and disambiguates meaning.
Yep!
This might be touched on in the
RDF Semantics with the not often mentioned idea of an
interpretation of a graph.
How does this square with the apparent tendency to want to treat
statements as overarching universal truths?
There are no universal truth, bar the possibility that the
aforementioned claim might be true :-)
Cheers,
-w
[0] http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/groups/ssp/members/dave.htm
[1] http://socialcomputer.eu/
--
Regards,
Kingsley Idehen
President& CEO
OpenLink Software
Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca: kidehen
