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

["Steven R. Newcomb" <srn@coolheads.com>]

[Tom Passin:]
> 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.

Right.

> 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.

(Making (and/or identifying) a good subject indicator
is a challenging artform.  There is plenty of room for
invention, here.)

> 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.

Right.

> 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.

Tom, I agree with you; this is all good stuff.  But
your note begins with "But...", so I'm guessing you
think that you and I disagree about what you're saying
here.

Maybe this will help to clarify:

I'm *not* saying that people should *ignore* the
assertions that are made about a subject when they're
trying to understand that subject.  I'm saying that if
there is no subject indicator, and therefore the
assertions made about a subject are all that there is
to indicate what the subject is, and if those
assertions are made by more than one author (as will
likely be the case in any sort of collaborative
environment), then it's very likely that the exact
nature of that subject will become multiple and/or
ambiguous.  When that happens, the whole Topic Maps
paradigm becomes unreliable and essentially useless.
The paradigm simply doesn't work unless there is
exactly one utterly changeless subject for every topic.

Worse: in a collaborative environment that doesn't
require collaborators to provide good subject
indicators, the paradigm can *seem to be working* when
it's really *not working*, and that can be very
dangerous.

I'm just making a plea that providing every topic with
a good subject indicator (i.e., a subject indicator
that is compelling, precise, and unambiguous) is an
essential policy when attempting to produce useful
topic maps by means of collaborative processes.

-Steve

--
Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant
srn@coolheads.com

voice: +1 972 359 8160
fax:   +1 972 359 0270

1527 Northaven Drive
Allen, Texas 75002-1648 USA