[xtm-wg] alternative to "real-world"

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

I have suggested in a previous post to get rid to any reference to
"real-world" in the specification.
Steve P. asked me (in a private answer) if I had some alternative
proposition.
I'm glad to be able to answer : yes, I have some :o)

First a short recall of why we should get rid of the "real-world"
expression. There is a basic and unrebuttable reason : nobody knows what
that means. Despite centuries of desperate efforts of thousands of
thinkers, philosophers, scientists ... no consensus definition has ever
been found for the meaning of this expression. So "real-world" is at best a
"subject of discourse". As such, its reality is backed by the billions of
pages written about it.
I was struck a few months ago, at the very beginning of my interventions on
this list, by a remark of Ann Wrightson, that the real world we deal with
was living mostly in our computers. This remark is IMO fundamental. The
more we live with computers, the more we consider that the "most real
things" are the informations the system can handle, and that's what the
notion of "reification" is all about : To make things real, that is to be
able to handle them, we have to transform them in system objects ...

So I think we have two levels of reality to deal with : the human discourse
level, and the system representation level. Forget about anything else.
Forget about the debate if subjects of human discourse "represent" any
"thing" at all. In fact, if you look to it with close attention, most of
the naming and language activity starts by creating names, and then
investigate what these names may mean :)
We all agree "freedom" "trust" "friendship" "democracy" "nature" are
subjects *living at the discourse level* (and well alive at this level). Do
we need - to represent them in the system - to settle the question of
knowing if they represent anything at all outside the discourse level ? Do
we need to refer even as something "conceived" in people's brain ?
Definitely not, and that is a good thing. Forget about "conceive" and
"real-world". All we have to know about subjects is what people say or
write or draw or even sing or compose about them, and how those same people
or other ones say these subjects are related to each other, and where to
find all information about all that. All that is discourse, discourse, only
discourse ... that's great !

Given all that, what shall we write as an introduction to subjects and
topics ? I propose the following :

"A Topic is a system representation of a subject of discourse, hereafter
called "subject".
A subject is anything people are able to name, speak, write or exchange by
any means information about.
Through discourse, people create relationships between subjects.
A Topic represents in the system those different aspects of the subject :
names given to the subject, information resources about it - called
occurrences -
and relationships with other subjects - called roles in associations.
The process through which a Topic is created to represent a subject is
called "reification" of the subject."

This formulation is avoiding any reference to anything else than discourse
level and system level.

Have a nice day  ... out there in the real world :))

Bernard

---------------------------------------
Bernard Vatant
bernard@universimmedia.com
www.universimmedia.com
"Building Knowledge"
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