Re: [topicmaps-comment] situated context

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

[Paul Stephen Prueitt]

>
> What appears to be the cause of the notion of hubris here (tell me if I am
> right Thomas), is the investment that we as a society have made on a
> philosophy and perspective that IGNORES the biological model to a very
great
> extent.  To a very great extent, the mainstream knowledge management and
> knowledge representation communities are apathetic even to a discussion of
> the issues that a biological perspective might bring to the issue of
> knowledge sharing within communities.
>

I would agree with this, although it is not exactly what I was thinking of.
I was referring to the notion that "machines" will never attain some of the
complex features of biological systems, like awareness, etc., on the grounds
that those features are somehow biological and thereby impossible to realize
in software (or robots).  I think that we don't know enough to be able to
make such a pronouncement, although many have done so in the past.

I certainly agree that it's extremely likely that biological systems have
huge amounts to tell us about creating such non-biological systems.

This is getting pretty far afield for a topic maps disscusion list, isn't
it?  Let me try to bring the thread back on topic a bit.  The connections
are these, I think -

1) What can topic maps be used for, and can they include sufficient
knowledge representation that maps can be used in the creation of situated
or aware systems?

My reading is that David is pretty sure they can, Paul hopes that they can,
and I hope so but I'm still unsure.  Am I close to the mark here?

2) How can useful topic maps be created - especially as a group or social
process - and should we expect them to be relatively static or constantly
changing and evolving?

Still not-cross-posting-but-feel-free-to-forward-ly yours,

Tom P