Re: Arcs

Andrew,

A point where I depart from Murray:

On Thu, 2010-10-21 at 13:24 +0100, Andrew S. Townley wrote:

<snip>

> > I also think it behooves everyone to do a bit of epistemological
> > homework before jumping head-deep into the pool of modeling. It's
> > a deep pool and the bottom is littered with the bodies of those
> > who have gone before us and had no ability to swim. I won't name
> > names, but as a hint they had lots of DARPA money.
> 
> 
> I'd strongly agree with this as well, however, you're going to have to deal with the collision of "those who know how we know" with "those who know X" and there's a lot more of the latter than there are of the former.  Gets back to the points earlier that you and Patrick raised, but the perfect model is useless if it isn't usable in the wild by real people on a daily basis.  I know you know this, but that's one of the biggest challenges I see in this whole space.  We need stuff for the masses that helps meet the epistemological criteria, and I think we're still a long way from many examples of that kind of system.
> 

I spent many happy hours with epistemology texts as an undergraduate,
mostly Hume, Nietzsche, Husserl, but also others. And I enjoy debating
that sort of thing.

However, I am not convinced that we need any models other than the ones
that users actually use. That is we should assist (to the extent we can
assist and not be a hindrance) users making explicit the subjects (read
epistemology) they "see" in the information they handle. 

That some people see "terrorists" lurking in every shadow and under beds
with no more basis than for believing I am the tooth fairy is neither
here nor there. Any more that John Sowa seeing Aristotle and Peirce at
every turn. They are all points of view. 

It is possible to construct a topic map legend informed by an FOL view
of the world. 

It is also possible to construct a topic maps legend not not informed by
an FOL view of the world.

Both are legitimate uses of topic maps and the only question is whether
some user (probably the one paying for their construction), thinks the
resulting topic maps accurate reflect their view of the world.

What other test would you use? 

I suspect that is what attracted me to topic maps in the first place. 

My background (or most recent one anyway) is in biblical studies and
viewpoints on its primary texts have shifted any number of times in the
last 3,000 or so years. 

Topic maps, to me anyway, offer a way to accommodate each of those
without without having to make choices that exclude other views. 

Or as Neitzsche was translated as saying (allegedly): "I am not bigoted
enough for a system. Not even my own." 

I rather like that. I should run down its source and put it on my blog
page. 

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick
 
-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick-Q/[email protected]
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)

Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net
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