Re: [topicmaps-comment] RE: [sc34wg3] Re: PMTM4 and XTM Layer 1.0

["Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@home.com>]

[Steven R. Newcomb]

I have always strongly resisted
>           this dangerous and false doctrine, and I'm still resisting it,
even in this
>           case.  The doctrine is:
>
>              We should be able to tell what the subject of a topic is
>              by analyzing its characteristics (i.e., in PMTM4 terms,
>              by analyzing all the associations in which it plays
>              roles).
>

But Steve, this is exactly how people know about most things (including most
words).  Were it otherwise, you would not have needed this long posting but
only one or two sentences.  For people, everything has connotations and
associations, and all of those adjust one's understanding of the thing.
It's not exactly "analyzing its characteristics" but it's in the same
ballpark.

How is a computer or even a person supposed to know accurately what is
intended by a subjectIndicatorRef?  The only way is for a person to read or
look at it and try to extract some gist, essence, or other understanding,
then write that into a program (if we are talking code), or for a person or
computer to apply some heuristics to the addressable resource to at least
get a label or descriptive phrase.

Having an ontology does not really address it either.  The hierarchy
animal-mammal-dog does not tell you what a dog is - there is no way to
distinguish a cat from a dog this way.  It may tell you how to reason about
a dog, or how to use it correctly in an association or sentence, but that's
not the same as knowing what it is.

It's is really a matter of "intensive" vs "extensive" definitions, and there
is a need for both.  Extensive is harder for a computer but probably more
natural for people.

Cheers,

Tom P