Re: [topicmaps-comment] OpenCyc and Topic Maps: Progress Report

[Murray Altheim <m.altheim@open.ac.uk>]

I wrote earlier:

> W. Eliot Kimber wrote:
> 
>> I spent the weekend coming up to speed--I think I now have a basic idea
>> of how Cyc represents knowledge--I can at least create simple constants,
>> associations, and rules and then ask simple questions about them and get
>> the expected answer. 
>
> Eliot, in reading through your message you come to many of the same
> conclusions as I did in my earlier Cyc parser (which to those unaware
> resulted in a posting on a now defunct web site of a set of PSIs for
> each of the Cyc upper ontology constants). Detailed responses follow.

[...]

BTW, this may seem a bit strange, but I'm holding off a bit on
this work until I tackle specific portions of Stephen Wolfram's
"A New Kind of Science", as he has a lot to say on time and space
that I think particularly relevant to those trying to model it.
His chapter "The Relationship of Space and Time" (pp.481) speaks
directly to programmatic handling of temporality, closely followed
on by "The Sequencing of Events in the Universe" (I need to write
stuff with titles like that!). You've also (along with Steve)
written a lot about time and scheduling, and I wonder what you
think of Wolfram's ideas. If either of you are in the UK I'd love
to share a pint or two over this one... (of course this is always
true, on any subject).

I think this will influence/affect other areas of "common sense"
modeling as well, indicated by the size of the set of constants
in Cyc that specialize #$TemporalThing (i.e., "the collection of
all things that have temporal extent or location).

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                  <http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK

      If it wants to be a global power and a player in the
      Atlantic alliance, Europe has to get back into the
      business of making war. -- Newsweek Magazine, June 3, 2002