[sc34wg3] revised draft Reference Model document N0298

[Ann M Wrightson]

Steve,

Your points below are all pertinent. Therefore, subjects are not absolute,
immutable referents, even though it is often useful to forget that when
working within a particular community or subject-area (this is what I was
getting at in my previous mail in the PSIs thread - and see example below)).
It worries me that the rhetoric of the dRM and (much of the) surrounding
discussion leads me to believe that subjects are somehow considered absolute
a priori, and that consequently the RM does not appear to to be designed to
support an AM designed to take into account subjects identified from
different perspectives, other than as sub-perspectives within a single
"God's-eye-view".
However, it may well be a good idea to do it that way in practice - just
like fuzzy sets work as fuzzy partitions of a non-fuzzy "universe". I have
no problem with absolute subjects as a design decision - I guess I'm
objecting to their appearing to be a religion.

I'll think a bit more about this - because it v. much affects what is an
appropriate underlying (formal) semantics for the RM - and BTW, I think that
what we have in the RM is not "assertions" but "items of information". The
difference is that assertions usually have an associated logic of a
truth-functional kind - which is probably not appropriate in this case.

Cheers

Ann W.


An example regarding identification of subjects: if I have a bibliographic
language describing "works", and another bibliographic language describing
"documents", then using apparent identity of subjects (eg William
Shakespeare; "Macbeth") to combine information expressed in the two
languages can yield an unusable mess of misinformation (- see Svenonius's
book (Intellectual Foundations of Knowledge Organization) for a thorough
explanation - which does not depend on topic maps). You could disambiguate
them in a topic map by having differentiated PSIs built using the underlying
theories of the two bibliographic languages - but you need specialized
knowledge in order to appreciate the need to do so, and many of the subjects
involved apparently really are identical ("just are") under a
less-bibliographically-educated perspective.



-----Original Message-----
From: sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org
[mailto:sc34wg3-admin@isotopicmaps.org]On Behalf Of Steven R. Newcomb
Sent: 16 April 2002 11:49
To: sc34wg3@isotopicmaps.org
Subject: Re: [sc34wg3] revised draft Reference Model document N0298


"Ann M Wrightson" <ann.wrightson@alphaxml.com> writes:

> >the land occupied by the
> >State of Texas is not an expression of itself, it
> >simply is.  A map of Texas, on the other hand,
> >*expresses* things about the territory occupied by
> >Texas.

> However, that the land occupied by the state of Texas
> *is capable of being identified as a subject*,
> depends crucially on a conceptual framework
> (consensus on a division of the landmass into
> territories in that way) represented by (a suitable
> equivalence class of) maps.

Ann, I'm not sure what you're getting at.

* Anyone can make a map.  Nobody has to agree that it
  corresponds to reality; the map's existence and
  utility may be independent of the existence of the
  mapped region.  (E.g., a map of Narnia.)

* No topic map, and no other instance of any form of
  human communication, stands alone.  Nobody can
  communicate with anybody about anything unless
  there's some shared context (such as a common natural
  language, or agreement about the shape of the North
  American land mass) that makes such communication
  possible.  (If that's your point, I'm with you all
  the way.)

* Subjects are in the mind of the topic map's author.
  If we presume that a topic map has utility, we
  necessarily presume that its author "knew what
  [subjects] he was talking about", even if we do not
  understand them, and even if we *mis*understand them.
  If there is a lack of understanding on our part, it
  is not necessarily clear whether the fault lies in
  ourselves, or in the insufficient precision or
  persuasive power of the topic map's author's choice
  of subject indicators, or in the failure of the
  author to think clearly and precisely.

With all that in mind, when you say:

> ...that the land occupied by the state of Texas *is
> capable of being identified as a subject*, depends
> crucially on a conceptual framework (consensus on a
> division of the landmass into territories in that
> way)...

...what do you mean by "being identified" and "depends
on"?  Are you speaking about the accuracy with which an
idea is invoked by the author of a subject indicator in
the consciousness of another person?  (In which case, I
agree with you.)  Or are you saying that there must be
consensus on the conceptual framework within which a
landmass is divided into separately-administered
territories?  (In which case, I'm not sure I agree with
you.)  Or are you saying that I can't have Texas as one
of my subjects unless I also represent a complex of
subjects, such as "statehood", that are necessary in
order to fully understand what is meant by invoking the
idea of one instance of such a state?  (I very much
doubt that you mean any such thing, but if you do, I
disagree with you on grounds of impracticality.)

-- Steve

Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant
srn@coolheads.com

Coolheads Consulting
http://www.coolheads.com

voice: +1 972 359 8160
fax:   +1 972 359 0270

1527 Northaven Drive
Allen, Texas 75002-1648 USA

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