Re: [topicmapmail] Re: [topicmaps-comment] Notions have existence .....

[Sam Hunting <sam_hunting@yahoo.com>]

You omit the final crucial portion of my posting:

    P.S. When the fruits of these agreements are "sanctified" as 
    contracts, changlessness and eternity will as changeless and as 
    eternal as the signers of the contracts desire.

Now to it: 

[sam hunting]
> > Fortunately, the topic map paradigm (as I understand
> > it) doesn't require me to buy into the reality of
> > Platonic archetypes to author a topic map.
> 
> > The discipline of ensuring that a topic is a proxy
> > for "one single clear idea" (Thomas Passim) can be
> > enabled, if not enforced, at a more humble and
> > pragmatic level by agreements in communities of
> > interest and practice as expressed in published
> > subjects.

[steve newcomb] 
> Documents don't change.  They simply are.  Information
> in general has an eternal quality that is not found in
> the universe of our five senses.

I didn't write "information" -- I wrote the "idea" for which the topic
is a proxy. Could it be, that in identifying the (digital?) document
with its ideas that you are conflating the bibliographic notions of the
book and the work?

[steve newcomb] 
> When a topic map author creates a topic map document,
> he is making an investment, not only of time and
> treasure, but also of personal credibility.

Assuming that machine authors have no personal credibilty, yes. 

[steve newcomb] 
> We often
> say that the topic maps paradigm delivers the most
> value when such authors try to use "published subject
> indicators" -- bits of information kept at
> widely-agreed-upon addresses, each of which is said to
> indicate exactly one very specific notion/idea/thing.

Agreed. These are the constructs I argue would be "sanctified" by
contract. (The religious word, "sanctified" was chosen quite
deliberately. People can agree to treat ideas as if they were eternal
even if the ideas are not so, for some purpose of their own.)

> In light of all that, I can't see why you would argue
> that it's ok for the subjects of "published subject
> indicators" to change. 

Because it isn't up to me to decide! If the communities of interest or
practice agree that the subject "coach" will turn into the subject
"pumpkin" on the first minute of the first day of 2002, then that is up
to them, is it not? And the map has value TO THEM, so what on earth is
the issue?

> You want to encourage authors
> to use published subject indicators, right?  Then why
> in the world would you want to make liars out of them
> and their topic maps, at some future indefinite date?

"I" am not the one who is "making" a "liar" out of anyone, as I
indicate above, nor even at an "indefinite date." (Again, "as
changeless and as eternal as the signers of the contracts desire")

What is not clear to me is why I have to buy into a theory of
"changeless","eternal" ideas when (a) it seems entirely evident to me
that ideas are neither changeless nor eternal and (b) we have the
notion of contracts agreed on by (collective) parties as a pragmatic
substitute. TS Eliot wrote "words slip, slide, crack, perish, will not
stay in place, will not stay still." His own words too -- is he a
"liar"?
 
> As a topic map author, quite literally the *only*
> condition under which I would ever use a subject
> indicator whose content is not under my own control is
> when I'm convinced that neither its subject nor its
> address is subject to change.  

That is entirely within your rights, and probably makes your brand of
topic maps very marketable (at least in the community of practice that
adheres to the "notion" of Platonic forms) and I applaud you. But I
don't think it makes sense to elevate your personal business model as a
human author to the status of a paradigm to which all must adhere --
even machine "authors" -- particularly when I must have missed whatever
text there is in 13250 or XTM that is a warrant for your view.

> To accept the idea that my subject
> indicators are changeable is to accept that the value
> of my labor in creating the topic map is subject to
> loss.

Yeah. So? You've heard of King Canute? (In any case, "my" subject
indicators are not *all* subject indicators, eh? See comment on coaches
and pumpkins above.)
 
> It seems to me that what you're saying is that I'd
> better use my own subject indicators, and forget about
> using published subject indicators that might be
> changed by their owners. 

No, (a) I am not recommending any particular course of action to you,
and (b) I am saying that PSI owners need to be explicit about the
"terms and conditions" under which the PSIs will -- as they must! --
change.

> It kind of defeats the value
> proposition of topic maps, that the labors of others
> can be efficiently leveraged by you, and that your own
> labor can be efficiently leveraged by others.  Doesn't
> it?

Quite the reverse. If I'm building a product out of parts from a
supplier, I don't expect that the parts will be "changeless and
eternal". I do expect that the supplier won't change the parts
arbitrarily, will announce changes beforehand, consult stakeholders,
give me time to "retool" etc. And I, as a supplier, would expect to
treat my clients in the same way. (The golden rule, eh?) In short, I
expect my PSI suppliers to act in a business-like way. That certainly
gives all the parties the leverage (margin) they need. Doesn't it? 

S.

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