I think a short HTML summary would only be
useful in any official document, because the entire post might be too much
information for those who would be reading this as an official document or
submission. However, if you mean simply gathering all the posts together
into one document for our own internal discussion, or even posted on the website,
that would make a lot of sense.
I’m in the up-to-the-brim stage
right now again myself…but I hope to share some a few more ideas on some
of these initial elements.
-----
Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga
-----Original Message-----
From: Rex Brooks
[mailto:rexb@starbourne.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 15, 2002
9:20 AM
To:
humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org; humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [humanmarkup-comment]
Request for Opinions: Documenting Discussions
I need some group guidance. Because we are not working
from use-cases, which we would be very constrained if we attempted due to the
wide variety of uses and purposes which we are aimed at serving, we need to
document how we arrived at the decisions about the specification we will be
submitting. Some TCs start from clear business scenarios, develop specific
use-cases, and drill down to fundamental functionalities to codify for specific
business purposes. We don't do that and because of that, selling the utility
and advisability of supporting our standard will be more difficult.
So, what I intend to do is to publish our discussions
as they occurred to support understanding our process and what we thought each
element, attribute, datatype and value was needed to accomplish. That is the
reason behind insisting on the process I did, and keeping discussions focused
in subject line threads.
My question is whether it is better to simply post
them all together in one message per element, attribute, etc, and include a url
to that message in the email archive, as I do for our minutes, or if I should
compile a short html page for each item? Obviously it is easier to give you the
email example now, so here is the discussions we had on Base Schema - Belief.
(It was capitalized in the subject, but won't be in the schema--just to clarify
that.) It is ordered from last to first chronologically as it was added to the
archive of our list at OASIS.
It will look just like any other entry in the archive:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/
I am hoping no one really wants a sample html, because
that is simply more effort, and my time is short, and after all, it is the
content of the messages that is important, not how it looks unless how it looks
prevents understanding or understanding would be substantially improved by an
html treatment.
Please let me know what you think.
Subject: FW:
[humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga <rkthunga@interposting.com>
To:
humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Sat, 07 Sep 2002 02:05:52 -0400
Rex: I also think we have enough fodder
for our first draft. A few
other comments I have however...
CURRENT CONSIDERATIONS?
-----
Wanted to clarify whether these are things to
consider at this stage or
not. Regardless, we can keep these in mind
while we move forward
(pulling from Len's post):
Name of belief(s)
Description of belief
Proof of belief -- in a subjective sense (i.e.
internal signs we
express)
-within our scope
Proof of belief -- in an objective sense (i.e.
external signs as
validation)
-Semantic Web
Commitment to belief
Code set for beliefs (Secondary Base Schema
considerations)
Cultural Sets
Personal Beliefs
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
-----
Assertion of fact vs. assertion of belief:
As for the distinction between assertion of fact
vs. assertion of belief
that you mention Len -- I think that this may
fall under "speech
actions" (i.e. signs) rather than
belief. When someone believes
something with a very strong commitment, then
the line blurs between an
assertion of a fact vs. an assertion of a
belief...for example "God
commanded me to destroy America" is
asserted as a fact, when in fact it
is a belief...or at least I think it is a
belief. To another, it may be
as 100% as real as "The sun will shine
through my window tomorrow".
We cannot verify this, as you mention in your
last post Rex, but we can
verify (or at least provide validation rules)
that demonstrate "the
degree to which someone believes something"
by evaluating the signs used
(as Len I believe mentioned earlier.)
Commitment to belief:
Do we want to provide containers for helping
people commit to sometimes
flawed and dangerous beliefs? Ultimately,
I think we do, because our
mission is simply to best represent current
communication
characteristics--not change or manipulate
them. It is up to software,
not HumanML, to actually help resolve
conflicting, unfounded beliefs.
As long as we have validation criteria, in
addition to commitment
quantifiers, I think we will sufficiently allow
for this (e.g. A HumanML
application can potentially be built to
challenge the belief that
"America is the Great Satan", by
sifting away the untruths involved in
such an assertion).
"Belief", more than most of the other
elements, is where we would
possibly interoperate with Semantic Web
initiative. I know that much
work is underway in the SW effort in this
regard, but I don't know to
what degree the SW takes into "human
belief" verses simply "assertions".
SUBJECTIVE/OBJECTIVE
-----
The one area I feel we should keep in mind is
the subjective vs.
objective reality as it may interplay with
beliefs and/or fact. Not
that we need to address the underlying physical
model of the universe
within HumanML, but we may need to account for
the differences in
subjective/objective models of reality, if we
hope to be interoperable
in the largest sense. Don't mean to open
up a can of leaping
grasshoppers, but I'd like to hear comments if
there are any.
Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga
Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
To:
"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>,'Rex Brooks'
<rexb@starbourne.com>,'Ranjeeth
Kumar
Thunga'
<rkthunga@interposting.com>,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Fri, 06 Sep 2002 12:08:14 -0700
I think the rules will emerge from collecting
together the beliefs
that comprise a belief system by asking the
people who adhere to the
belief systems to list the beliefs or the
components of the belief
system, but that is another chunk of work for
another time. I think
we pretty much have enough for the first pass at
it when we come back
to it in assembling the first draft later this
month.
Ciao,
Rex
Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
To: 'Rex
Brooks' <rexb@starbourne.com>,'Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga'
<rkthunga@interposting.com>,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Fri, 06 Sep 2002 13:12:28 -0500
I'm not being exact, but yes, a belief system
could
be constructed from beliefs, but that requires
almost
something like rules or some way to state that
the
set of beliefs referred to as a belief system
have
some relationships that make them into a system.
Regardless of what the belief is based on,
physical
facts, mental states, etc., a belief is what the
holder accepts as "true". If it
is agreed upon,
it de facto becomes attached to some larger
element
type such as culture. A belief need not be
part
of a system, but it must have a person or
persons
to assert it. Beliefs do not exist
independent
of humans. Facts do.
len
Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
To:
"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>,'Ranjeeth Kumar
Thunga'
<rkthunga@interposting.com>,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Fri, 06 Sep 2002 11:03:40 -0700
I think that this approach that Len describes is
more along the lines
of Belief System than belief as an atomic
element. I think we need to
be careful about that.
One can have a belief that the sun will rise
tomorrow, regardless of
what cultural or social belief system one
adheres to or whether one
adheres to any particular belief system. The fact that the sun will
not rise tomorrow, but the earth will continue
to rotate about its
axis is actually irrelevent to my belief because
my belief is not
necessarily based on the science of physics as
we have come to
understand and accept it.
Why or how something actually happens is the
truth to which Ranjeeth
refers and which most reasonably rational
people, as I understand
THAT set of concepts, agree is independent of
any belief or belief
system. The idea that the truth might NOT
actually be independent of
our perceptions and beliefs could also be true,
but we will probably
not be able to verify it.
So what I think we should do is to consider that
when we get back
around to the new elements we need to
consider...
I am in fact going to hold off on sending this
until I have posted my
first entry for the next element. Sigh.
It is gonna get real busy real quick.
Ciao,
Rex
Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
To:
'Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga'
<rkthunga@interposting.com>,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Fri, 06 Sep 2002 10:19:27 -0500
One approach may be to treat belief in terms of
commitment by the individual to the
belief. We
would need an element model that names the
belief,
describes the belief, and points to signs that
would
be expressed as a result of holding the
belief. This
would include a quantifier for commitment that
has
at least two components: how strongly the
individual
states that the belief is held, and the sign set
the
observer can look for as proof of
commitment. This is
not different from the ontological commitment
concept.
The belief itself has to stand alone so that we
can
have a code set for beliefs that can then be
members of
cultural sets (what one can assert and
individual may
hold by being a member of a culture) vs personal
beliefs
(that which the individual asserts they
hold. For
example, I share certain beliefs with Hindus but
I
am not Hindu by birth or culture.)
Beliefs would need a discriminator so that
holding an
assertion of a fact (the sun will rise tomorrow)
and
the assertion of a belief (God loves children)
can be
differentiated.
len
Subject: Re: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>
To:
Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga
<rkthunga@interposting.com>,humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Fri, 06 Sep 2002 09:42:37 -0700
I will chime in with an agreement. If Rob, if he
gets this, could
acknowledge adding belief to the list of new
elements, I would
appreciate it. I don't think we can attempt to
capture "truth" per
se, but belief as a basic element of the human
condition, provided
one is not raised by wolves in the wilderness,
is a valid.
Ciao,
Rex
Subject: [humanmarkup-comment] Base Schema-Belief
From:
Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga <rkthunga@interposting.com>
To:
humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date:
Fri, 06 Sep 2002 11:09:36 -0400
After reading Len and Rex's comments from
yesterday, I started to think
that we may want to add 'belief' as a Base
Schema element. It is
tempting to include this within Secondary Schema
within culture perhaps,
but I realize that belief is an aspect of
ourselves that lead us to use
the signs we communicate with fundamentally,
just like emotion, and
intention (which I would like to continue to
explore as well).
No one argues that there is something
fundamentally "True" in the
highest sense, although different means of
getting there and
perspectives: through scientific method,
philosophy, meditation or
religion. Belief is our best approximation
of the fundamental Truth.
Some people may equate their 'belief' as being 100% equal to Truth, and
that is where all the problems we are having
come from--i.e.
fundamentalism. The big danger, as both
Rex and Len alluded to, is this
fundamentalism. By strictly defining our
'beliefs', we may hinder our
ability to let ourselves probe further, and may
discourage us from
casting healthy doubts.
Thus, in a sense, I feel we are also missing a
unifer "ultimateTruth"
within our definition, but can't think of where
it might belong. After
all, that is what a belief is ultimately for--to
describe an
'ultimateTruth' that we have yet to form a
unified, verifiable,
complete, and mutually acceptable definition
of. Even though some
persons in the history of man may have achieved
this state of awareness
through subjective experience, we as a human
race have not reached this
level through objective descriptions.
I'm starting a new thread to be consistent with
our naming scheme,
although I am cutting and pasting some of the
earlier content.
If we can describe belief in some way, while
also being able to exactly
and specifically point out where the
distinctions may lie, and make it
clear that beliefs are not absolute within
themselves, then we have a
better shot at helping dissolve the conflicts between
beliefs. Rigidly
held beliefs can be more dangerous if strictly
defined without such an
allowance. That may be the function of
Secondary Schema definition, but
just wanted to keep that in mind.
--------
Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga
--
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
|