[xtm-wg] XTM Template: Mindset

[Andrius Kulikauskas <ms@ms.lt>]

Who is interested in XTM Templates?  

How do you envision them?  Do you have examples in mind?

Our laboratory, Minciu Sodas, has drafted the Mindset modeling language
to help us import/export our thoughts between tools for organizing
thoughts, such as http://www.thebrain.com, http://www.mindmanager.com,
http://thoughtstream.org, http://www.memes.net   We'd like to express
this as an XTM template.  So I'd like to learn more about what we have
in mind, what is a "template", and start to discuss particular issues
that we face.

I'd like to briefly introduce Mindset.  We use Mindset to model our
thinking.  As authors of our thoughts, we are sophisticated users. 
Often we don't know, or can't explain, what we mean.  An assistant,
whether human or not, knows even less what we have in mind.  As
thinkers, we purposefully use structures - such as sequences,
hierarchies, networks - to organize our thoughts structurally, even
before we know concretely how they might relate.  Typically, these
structures are ambiguous, and often we violate them, anyways. 
Therefore, we find it crucially important to record our "structural
intent".  For example, we may intend each relationship to be a step in a
sequence, but they may form a cycle, nonetheless.  We want to record our
intent, regardless of what the structure came to be.  Our intent is what
helps us shape our thinking.

In Mindset, each thought [subject/topic] is modeled as six "mental
levers":
Content  [ResourceData] 
Prompt [BaseName]
ID 
FromID [of Associated subject/topic]
ToID [of Associated subject/topic]
Intent [Association type]

"Content" sustains our thought, it's what supports immersive thinking.
It's the information by which our thought maintains our attention. 
Content has nontrivial internal structure that engrosses us.  Content
may be a paragraph of text, or any other expression of an idea, perhaps
as an image, file, code, data.

"Prompt" evokes our thought, it's what supports reflective thinking. 
It's the information by which our thought evokes our attention.  Prompt
refers us to the Content.  Prompt is succinct enough so that we may view
many Prompts at once.  Prompt may be, for example, a name, address or
sign.

"ID", "FromID" and "ToID" plot our thought locally, they're what support
dynamic thinking.  Together they let us interpret our thought
(identified by ID) as the movement of our mind from one thought
(identified by FromID) to another thought (identified by ToID). We do
not require that thoughts exist for which ID=Y or ID=Z.  In general, we
place no restrictions on ID, FromID or ToID.  In particular, they need
not be unique.  We consider thoughts to be interchangeable if they have
the same value for ID.

There are eight "reserved" Intents, illustrated in the diagram I
attach:  Independent Thought, Unordered Hierarchy, Nondirected Network,
Acyclic Network, Closed Sequence, Open Sequence, Directed Network,
Irregular Structure.  Intent gives the global "spirit" of the local
structural relationship, and so they are not validated in any way, and
the author may create additional intents.

I'd like to know in what sense this can be a "template".  I include
below a sample XTM syntax for a single thought.  It all seems rather
simple, but actually there are some messy real life details.  We're
modeling human thinking so we don't want to have to "conform" to XML or
XTM.  Our model is still in draft form, but for example, currently we
allow different thoughts to have the same ID, in which case they are
considered to be interchangeable.  I presume that can cause big problems
in XTM or XML.  What that means is that our modeling language may be
less restrictive than our XTM interpretation (and we'll have others, for
example, CSV).  Also, our XTM interpretation may not be "valid" XTM.  Is
that OK for a template?  Does a template have to always generate valid
XTM syntax?

Also, I think we'd like to be able to "extend" our Mindset XTM Template
so that it "interprets" XTM that doesn't actually fit within Mindset. 
For example, the Mindset standard is very strict that there is only one
prompt [name] and one content [resourcedata] per thought [topic].  The
reason is that in our minds (or in this model of our minds) a thought
integrates resources as a unity, they don't relate to the thought except
as that unity.  However, it can be very useful to have other resources
tag along, for computing sake.  So in our "template" we'd probably want
to have a standard means of pulling together different resources into a
single resource, and we may also want to be able to do the opposite,
unwind a single resource into a set of resources.  Where would this fit
in the definition of an XTM template?

I value your comments, and I look forward to discussion on XTM
templates.

Yours,

Andrius
ms@ms.lt

Sample of possible syntax for a thought:

<topic id="#thoughtX">
   <instanceOf>
      <topicRef xlink:href="#unordered hierarchy"/>
   </instanceOf>
   <subjectIdentity>
      <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="#movementX"/>
   </subjectIdentity>
   <baseName>
      <baseNameString>My first thought.</baseNameString>
   </baseName>
   </occurrence>
      <resourceData>This is my very first thought which I will 
         always treasure. It is a branch in an unordered hierarchy,
         which takes me from thoughtY to thoughtZ. </resourceData>
   </occurrence>
</topic>


<association id="#movementX">
   <member>
      <roleSpec>
         <topicRef xlink:href="#from"/>
      </roleSpec>
      <topicRef xlink:href="#thoughtY"/>
   </member>
   <member>
      <roleSpec>
         <topicRef xlink:href="#to"/>
      </roleSpec>
      <topicRef xlink:href="#thoughtZ"/>
   </member>
</association>


Andrius Kulikauskas
Director
Minciu Sodas laboratory
http://www.ms.lt
ms@ms.lt
+1 (559) 735-0262
in Visalia, California
through June, 2001
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