Re: Another round of subject identity crisis c.2011

Hi Lars,

On 9 Mar 2011, at 3:28 PM, Lars Heuer wrote:

> Hi Andrew,
> 
> Just a quick note to clarify that we have a common understanding about
> CTM.

I think so...

> [...]
>>>> If I want to make type-based statements about the content from said
>>>> resource, I do something like this:
>>> 
>>>> dublin = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin
>>>>      isa city;
>>>>      population: 506211;
>>>>      ... ;
>>>>      .
>>> 
>>> Here you're saying that the *webpage* is an instance of "city" and has
>>> a population. I think you want to use a subject identifier here:
> 
>> Am I?  How?
> 
> Since you're saying: The topic has the item identifier "#dublin" and
> the subject locator "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin" and topic
> is an instance of city.
> 
> I wonder if you misinterpret the "=" as equal sign à la "My local id
> "dublin" represents the same subject as the subject indicator
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin>"?

Nope.  :)  I suppose it's down to an evaluation order question, really... e.g. which one has more precedence, the local identifier or the remote, opaque identifier within the context of the local name resolution space.  BTW, how do you know that the URL is a *webpage* and what does a webpage mean? ;)

That's why I suggested possibly doing something like (and you'll really think I'm crazy now...):

dublin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin>
	=http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin
	isa city.

I'd imagine that the above isn't really legal, but no, I didn't misinterpret CTM syntax here.  I meant to tie the URI as a subject locator for the item identifier.  The fact that it does, in fact, also relate to the subject indicated by the subject identifier of the same URI is actually irrelevant to the point that I'm trying to make here.  That is, I actually want to capture the information with contextual linkage about what the Wikipedia page (resource) happens to say about the subject Dublin (as a city) vs. say what http://www.dublincity.ie (the resource) says about the subject Dublin (as a city--whatever that is).

Here's where the intersection of the root issue is relevant to where I started and the previous discussion:  It's really trying to provide a way to qualify reification as in "reifies as type" rather than using an assumed reification proxy type.  If I want to reify a remote resource as a type, then I should be able to treat it as a type within the map.  If I want to reify a remote resource as a city, then I should be able to treat it as a city within the map.

If I don't specify a reification type, then the garden variety path everyone already understands kicks in, and it's your best guess as to what properties the topic reifying the subject that is a resource might have.  The subject locator is effectively opaque, and you just get another bytestream identifier within your local map.

> EQ IRI is simply the notation for subject locators has nothing in
> common with an assignment/equals operator.

Understood and agreed.

Cheers,

ast
--
Andrew S. Townley <[email protected]>
http://atownley.org