[topicmaps-comment] Everchanging subjects [ Notions have existence ...]

[David Dodds <drdodds42@hotmail.com>]

Hmmm.  Thomas, alot of what you said below is what Ive been saying for the 
last 5 months. (over in the KMCI virtual chapter yahoogroups)

Ive posted code along with the discussion text. I am now beginning to think 
that not only are people not having a clue what I am conveying by either the 
words or the computer code (SVG diagrams and topic maps) but by their 
silence and lack of questions I think maybe they just want to sit 
comfortably in their old ... and sleep through my material.

Anyway you mentioned Lakoff, whose metaphor stuff I have discussed alot and 
shown some code too. Perhaps people in this forum who are interested in the 
value of metaphor/analogy processing on computer would be willing to read my 
series on the subject and on situated context.

cheers
David Dodds



>From: "Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@home.com>
>To: topicmaps-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
>Subject: Re: [topicmaps-comment] Everchanging subjects [Re: Notions have 
>existence ...]
>Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 20:58:42 -0400
>
>Everyone's understanding of everything, including words, constantly changes
>and adjusts with learning and experience.  With this in mind, how can the
>subject described by a public subject indicator be understood as something
>precise and unchanging?  For example, consider a PSI for a class-subclass
>association.  I dare say that some people may have thought that this is a
>simple, clear-cut, unchanging subject.
>
>But the RDF core team has just decided that cycles will be allowed in a
>class-subclass series of relationships.  Previously, that was not 
>understood
>to be the case and cause a disconnect with DAML_OIL.
>
>Another example - if I say the the subject of my topic is Steve Newcomb,
>your understanding of this specification depends partly on your
>understanding of what a "person" is, and what an instance of a person is,
>and possibly on what you think I understand a person to be.  These things
>are understood differently by different people in the same culture, let
>alone between different cultures.
>
>Furthermore, most things are understood metaphorically or at least with a
>large metaphorical component (see George Lakoff's works, for example).  
>This
>can be seen as getting to fit more or less well to a sort of complex
>structural template that was devised for some other situation.
>
>On the other hand, it is often not necessary to know the subject exactly in
>order to work usefully with it, if you know the rules for using it.  That's
>like proving theorems in geometry without knowing what a "line" is supposed
>to be.  It can be done.  Or like using a computerized theorem prover - the
>prover knows nothing about the subjects exceot what type they are and what
>rules they have to follow.
>
>So you can in actual real life make a lot of progress without knowing
>exactly what the subject is.  Is this good enough for machine processing 
>and
>use?  Ah, that's another thing, isn't it?  But it probably gets in the
>formal rules of use area more than anything else.
>
>You might to know that the heavy thinkers on the RDF-Logic group are 
>arguing
>just now about how to connect computer representations of RDF resources to
>real-world addressable and non-addressable subjects.  It's not just us...
>
>Cheers,
>
>Tom P
>
>
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