Jack Park wrote:
>
> The topic maps folks do this with a *public subject* which is being defined
> as a registered URN. Registering URNs doesn't appear to be all that easy.
>
> In a closed system, you just start with the number 0, grab a couple of
> numbers for some reserved things, then start giving every concept a new,
> unique number. Pointrel does this. I suppose you'll need to use long
> integers to pull that off, but, what the heck. Problem is, you cannot share
> with others; that requires grabbing numbers from some registry. Unique URLs
> would do, I suppose. If you chose a unique URL, then, at that web page, you
> can put some kind of verbiage, photo, movie, whatever, so that all viewers
> grok the same thing.
>
> I refer to this process as *semantic grounding*. In closed systems, it's
> rather easy. In open systems, it's really hard.
I've thought about this some in the context of the Pointrel system. My
choice of 4 byte integers for IDs in those verions of the code is simply
pragmatic for the systems I work on and disk space limits I have. There
is no reasons the ID cannot be longer (or shorter). I've also thought of
unique IDs for these nodes (and know a way to support this, since the
Pointrel system uses an index file for efficient search and that could
include a hash table or other lookup system for longer IDs that were not
positional).
However, if you look at Kent's comments in "Data & Reality" on this
relating to ROSE, his idea is that one would have private stores which
only pass "symbols" across an interface to another system (and never
relations or objects or executeables). I think this is a good way to go,
but it requires a sophisticated import / export process. In effect, you
are treating such stores as brains or minds, and they communicate by an
agreed on language (XML, proprietary binary formats, whatever). (The
issue is somewhat more complex when you discuss making backups of just
part of the system).
For example, this group is looking at import / export:
http://www.ms.lt/ourownthoughts.html
http://www.ms.lt/importexport.html
The issue with transporting things with other than an intermediate
language is that one still has to reconcile similar concepts which have
been given different IDs independently or integration of the new data.
For example, if you and I merge our email, we might find out that we
have different unique IDs for the concept of "Doug Engelbart" which we
constructed when we first heard of him. So -- a reconciliation process
is still needed. Similarly, we may still have collisions -- either from
a failure of the unique ID system (same random number, mistake for other
ID component) or from importing an old version of the knowledge system.
For example after you and I reconciled on a new ID for "Doug" (creating
some new version of the system) I might import some old email I had
archived and lost, and then I would need to reconcile concepts again. I
guess what I am saying is it is not clear you can get away without
reconciling concepts.
Yes in theory we could have an agreed upon dictionary everyone shared,
but I don't think this is 100% workable in practice. You can have some
concepts most everyone mostly agrees on at the start, but you face both
new concepts being created and the meaning of concepts drifting. What we
all are creating is something much beyond a dictionary -- and even
beyond an encyclopaedia.
This makes a lot of sense when you think that the meaning of a concept
is really in large part the relations it is involved in (and their
relations). So, no two non-identical systems will apply the exact same
meaning to any concept (even if differences in meaning are not usually
distinguishable in practice).
For just one example, when I refer to "Bill Gates" we may both think of
the same person, but if you think of him mostly as being the world's
richest entrepreneur building an enterprise from scratch and I think of
him as someone given a million dollar trust fund at birth, having a
prominent lawyer father, and a well connected mother (hobnobbing with
IBM high ups), "Bill Gates" may have totally different meanings to each
of us. For example, you may refer to things as a "like Bill Gates" to
imply something about entrepreneurship and realizing the "American
dream", I might refer to things as "like Bill Gates" to imply something
about being born part of the elite and an inheritor of titled
monopolies. Merging these concepts may be possible, but it may again
change the meaning of relations to them.
The notion of the interrelation of meaning and metaphor comes up here,
but I'm not ready to pursue it in depth (Douglas Hofstadter is pursuing
it though).
http://www.psych.indiana.edu/cogsci/hofstadter.html
I guess what I am saying is that if we communicate in text (as in
email), we are using many metaphors. We aren't just pointing at
extremely well defined concepts. Even when I point at a tree, I might
mean "circle of life" (meaning the leaves and becoming fertilizer for
the tree) and you might see "firewood". As I write this I realize that
the whole notion of hyperlinking to a sense denies the notion of
metaphor. Perhaps that is one reason I think the future may be more that
of dynamnic search (guided by intent or context or hints) rather than
explicit links. For example, see these people who are looking into
search aspects:
http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/
especially their Interspace Research Project:
http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/projects/interspace/summary-top.html
However I still find links appealing in the sense of building up
knowledgebases. However, this issue of [metaphorically guided] search
vs. [explicit] link is a very interesting one. And just because I want a
system to use links internally to represent my changing knowledge base
does not mean it is the best way to communicate. Let me present a
challenge that makes the point: how do you hyperlink a poem for public
display? Yes, creating links may be easy for you to do for yourself and
your own interpretation, but how do you do it for others?
Obviously if we are referring to concepts that are intended to point to
binary things (like a web page version or an email that was sent) we may
have less difficulty reconciling the meaning of a global unique ID for
these. However, the emergent meaning around relations that link these
emails to other deeper meanings
may create a similar problem to the "like Bill Gates" problem above.
I think the resolution to this is to have a sytem that can handle
multiple meanings for concepts (merging and disentangling as needed,
like in Kent's "the butler did it" example)-- but this is easier to say
than implement.
-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com
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