[xtm-wg] Red shoe, implicit context and metalevel (Re : Equivalence ...)

["Bernard Vatant" <universimmedia@wanadoo.fr>]

[Tom]

> "Shoe #257 is red"

There is always a context to make a statement meaningful, so maybe we can
imagine some implicit pieces of context here.

1. A single shoe is considered, which is quite unusual. Shoes usually go by
pairs.
2. It's identified by a number, looking like it's an object in a weird
collection (I assume it's some criminal affair, where this shoe is an
exhibit found in the car next to the victim).
3. A shoe, at ordinary temperature, is not a red-light-emitting object. Red
color is through reflection. So the "is red" property is not defined without
lighting conditions (daylight or some light source with a spectrum broadly
equivalent to daylight). If the lighting does not contain the red part of
the spectrum, this shoe may look black or deep green or whatever.

Therefore, at the opposite of the very short TM proposed by Steve - with a
lot of implicit in it - one could consider a more verbose one, pushing up
the implicit to a more abstract and general meta-level. BTW, this has
something to do with the present debate about recursivity, meta-level and
such. You put the implicit-explicit fronteer at an arbitrary level, assuming
that the implicit context is the same one for every user of the statement.
Below is one example of XTM expression of the same statement "with context".
Note that a part of the context is expressed as scope (daylight), and a part
as a complete association expliciting the situation in which we are led to
speak about the shoe's color (exhibit-file)

Note that several <topicRef> refer to topics snipped in the ... beginning
the TM to make it short.
They could be replaced by external <subjectIndicatotRef> to proper PSI.

<topicMap>
...

<topic id = "ex257">
    <instanceOf>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# shoe">
    </instanceOf>
<topic>

<association>
    <instanceOf>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# exhibit-file">
    </instanceOf>
    <scope>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# David-Wilson-affair">
    </scope>
    <member>
        <roleSpec>
            <topicRef xlink:href = "# exhibit">
        </roleSpec>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# ex257">
    </member>
    <member>
        <roleSpec>
            <topicRef xlink:href = "# exhibit-type">
        </roleSpec>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# next-to-victim-found-object">
    </member>
</association>

<association>
    <instanceOf>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# object-property">
    </instanceOf>
    <scope>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# daylight">
    </scope>
    <member>
        <roleSpec>
            <topicRef xlink:href = "# has-property">
        </roleSpec>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# ex257">
    </member>
    <member>
        <roleSpec>
            <topicRef xlink:href = "# property-type">
        </roleSpec>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# color">
    </member>
    <member>
        <roleSpec>
            <topicRef xlink:href = "# property-value">
        </roleSpec>
        <topicRef xlink:href = "# red">
    </member>
</association>

</topicMap>

This verbose but somehow explicit example shows that there is - as always -
more semantics in the context than in the statement itself ...

Cheers

Bernard


To Post a message, send it to:   xtm-wg@eGroups.com

To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: xtm-wg-unsubscribe@eGroups.com 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/