[xtm-wg] RE: topicRef to reference assocs as well as topics

["Bernard Vatant" <b.vatant@wanadoo.fr>]

Graham

I think we have mixed two different debates, and I'll try to sort them a
little more.

The first one is about making the tool clear to convince people to begin
working with it. I've defended elsewhere - and was not the only one - the
position that the conceptual model should address common sense. Closure is
a wonderful target, but we must not forget, however wonderful the tool we
are building, it's "only a tool", which means what people will do with it,
the purpose, is more important that the beauty of tool in itself.
Let's take an example : through set theory, one is able to "close"
mathematics, and show that "(almost)everything is a set". Anyway, to build
tools in geometry or calculus or economy or chemistry, considering
"everything a set" does not yield effective results, as everybody knows.
Common sense will never consider Associations as being on the same level as
Topics, even in the case conceptual model and syntax do, the same way no
effective mathematician  will consider a line and a number of the same
nature, even if he "knows" somewhere they both could be leveled to sets for
closure's sake.

We have to target, I think, on showing the power of the tool at a very
basic level, where in over 95% of cases, Topics  will refer to "noun" or
"nominal group" Subjects, whereas Associations will refer to "sentences".
Most Maps authors will start and are likely to work no further than that
level, for all pragmatic purposes. And if they want to start building
something and not be too confused to begin with, they have to work for a
while at this basic level - where there is anyway a tremendous work to do -
the same way I think you have to work for a while with numbers and
triangles and measures - with that you build only cathedrals - before going
up to classes and sets and mappings -  to build data bases -

That's why I maintain it should be good to have a notion of
<associationSubject>, refering to a Topic S which is the "reason for"
associating members Topics A, B, C ...
When building the Map to begin with, that's the way the questions are set,
at least that the way I set them, and my hunch is it's a quite widely
shared path of mind.
You are in some trading business. You got these Topics A,B,C ... the first
ones you consider in your context, they are not sentences, they are basic
object-like Topics such as people, companies, products, and basic concepts
like price, stock, transport ... You see these Topics are somehow related.
The Map constraints push you to exprime "how" they are related, and it
seems in most of the cases you'll find there is a Topic S which is the core
of this "how". Calling it <associationSubject> seems to me the most natural
way to do that.
Another way to do it is making the subject as a member in the association,
with a SubjectRole. I don't think any of these solutions will be an
unuseful overloading of the syntax, but am pretty sure it would be a good
help for clearing authors' and users' mind. Pushing to identify and  name
subjects of associations is maybe a way to avoid garbage no-meaning
associations.

OTOH, and it's the other debate,  considering at the syntactic level
Associations as Topics is certainly the necessary basis to go further up to
logical and inference levels, such as : "Ass #1 is a condition for Ass#2,
or "if (Ass#1 and Ass#2) then Ass#3". But at this inference level, you'll
want somehow to attribute "true" or "false" values, which will make sense
for Associations, but not for object-like Topics, so there again, you'll
have to make a pragmatic distinction between "noun-like" Topics and
"sentence-like" Topics if you don't want to fall in logical traps.

One of a few things I've learned in 20 years maths teaching is one main
difficulty in building knowledge - and that's what we are about, even if it
was not choosen as tagline :( - is to make clear there are elemental
objects, then sentences about these objects, and then logical organisation
of sentences ... in that building task, one has to be patient and careful,
and delivering "meta-closure" to begin with leads to confusion in learner's
mind.

Yours

Bernard




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