[topicmapmail] loss-less transformation of topic maps

[W.M. Jaworski]

[BV]
Bernard - not "Bertrand" please :o))

[WMJ]
I can give you many reasons why I committed this "sin" to support my
apology. End result is: I did something wrong in my text. In view of your
"reprimand" my intellectual, distinct model of you is "Bernard" or in spite
of my effort it is still "Bertrand"?. Using a sign (symbol?) I could be
wrong less often.

[BV]
The process of validation and social agreement is essential for the
construction of collective knowledge references.

[WMJ]
Should that process be 100% text based (verbalized)? I feel that that we are
in the same process as when print of text (Gutenberg) was invented. Role of
text will be diminished accordingly.

[BV]
Indeed, out of my experience as a maths teacher for more
than twenty years,

[WMJ]
Twenty years ago, it took me 2 hours to prepare new material (30+- overheads
or equivalent to be written on the blackboard) for 2 hours lecture. Most of
the time I was talking (verbalizing) and students were making notes.
Today it takes me 20+ hours to prepare 2 hours lecture/workshop. Why? Not
much of talking, but a lot of students' participation in 'manipulating' of
'knowledge' represented as 'context maps'. Students are not making textual
notes. See more at http://www.gen-strategies.com/Lectures/Learning.htm.
Should I stick with text because is less "costly" to prepare and more
"common"?

[BV]
Where and on what ground will we construct this consensus,
if not at some natural language metalevel? Don't forget we'll have to
communicate afterwards to the rest of the world, every administrator and
editor and end user, what we are about.

[WMJ]
(1) Today scenario/use case
I am a mentor for a company seeking first round financing from VCs,
therefore I am deeply involved in so called "due diligence" process. I
consider that this kind of process is done "under duress" and has to be done
in the way "end user wants", namely "at some natural language metalevel".
(2) Tomorrow scenario
"I am afraid to have to conclude that our next generation will be "link
junkies" rather than "text heads" [Martin Bryan]
(3) Quote for ontologists
"OBJECT-LANGUAGE AND META-LANGUAGE.
Since we have agreed not to employ semantically closed languages, we have to
use two different languages in discussing the problem of the definition of
truth and, more generally, any problems in the field of semantics. The first
of these languages is the language which is "talked about" and which is the
subject matter of the whole discussion; the definition of truth which we are
seeking applies to the sentences of this language. The second is the
language in which we "talk about" the first language, and in terms of which
we wish, in particular, to construct the definition of truth for the first
language. We shall refer to the first language as "the object language," and
to the second as "the meta-language."" from
http://www.ditext.com/tarski/tarski.html

[BV]
Back to the quoted syntax and graph representation below. You claim they are
not equivalent. I'd like you to argument about it, and maybe tell more about
what you mean by "equivalent".

[WMJ]
Bernard,
Sir! You are "dragging" me into your "textual" territory. I refuse. I play
rugby not tennis :-)

(1) I could point to you the inconsistency, but YOU created textual and
graphical representations of the same problem. I assumed that it is the same
problem in two representations. If these are two different problems in two
different notations than obviously I am wrong.
How did I discover inconsistencies? I did join/merge the two (text and
graphical)  representations into one text/graph representation. I am
distressed that I did not notice the inconsistency in the original
representations.
(2) Lets assume for a while :-) "common" understanding of word "equivalent".
Or should we start again "If I say word 'equivalent' ..." game?

Well, this e-mail is long and purely textual so you are the winner. However
I did that "under duress" and I am sure that you will be a graceful winner.

Best

WMJ






-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard Vatant [mailto:b.vatant@wanadoo.fr]
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 5:59 AM
To: W.M. Jaworski; Martin Bryan
Cc: topicmapmail@infoloom.com
Subject: Re: [topicmapmail] loss-less transformation of topic maps


[WMJ]

> (1) Is mathematics text based? No! NL text is not even a surface. It is
used
> to put "paint" on the mathematical (symbolic and intellectual) constructs.

I think we have there radically different views of the world. Do you
consider the prose - somehow standardized or ritual, even if in natural
language - used to articulate discourse in mathematical publications, or for
that matter in any scientific publication, and in standards specifications
like W3C or ISO, only a "social paint", and the peer review process, based
on those publications, only diplomatic gesticulation, with no real
importance in the efficiency of the tools? I strongly disagree. The process
of validation and social agreement is essential for the construction of
collective knowledge references. Without that process, there is no
consistent knowledge communities, the same way that there are no consistent
social right-driven communities without aknowledged (written) laws and
regulations, elaborated through peer-review process of the same type. There
is no fundamental difference, IMO, between the human process leading to the
elaboration and validation of a social law and the one leading to the
adoption of a new standard syntax or mathematical tool or so-called
"physical law". It's all about forging a collective tool through
intersubjective agreement. And, like it or not, all those processes are
referencing to TEXTS.
Every bit of mathematical reference is grounded on definitions (text) axioms
(texts) and theorems (text) and weird notations (often difficult to
serialize indeed). Even if mathematical objects are pluridimensional,
geometrical, graphical, functional ... what makes the meaning and efficiency
of these objects and make the mathematical construction consistent is that
text metalevel. Indeed, out of my experience as a maths teacher for more
than twenty years, what I consider to be the real difficulty of students in
mathematics, what is stopping most of them at a very elementary level is not
the comprehension of the mathematical objects, algorithms or
representations, but the comprehension and mastery of this natural language
metalevel.
Moreover, like natural language, syntax of mathematics is often more driven
by historical contingent constructs than formal or logical constraints. I
can point you at many mathematical notations which are known to be
inconsistent, but are kept going on because everybody agrees on their
implicit context and nobody wants to rewrite all the books. Ask the first
programmers of automated calculus the hard time they had with
trigonometrical notations for example, which are completely inconsistent
with other algebraic notations. Ask any maths teacher the hard time it is to
explain to high school children the consistency of things like:
In a(b+c)  a(...) means a multiplication, and (two years after): in f(x),
f(...) means a function!

Every student in maths and science has to go through all that language
contingencies and notation inconsistencies, and master the historically
built collective knowledge and agreements. So he/she has to become somehow a
"text-editing-bigot".

In trying to build consistent and efficient references for Topic Maps, we
are confronted to the same problem of constructing some agreement. We have a
syntax, built out of a mixture of formal and logical arguments, historical
consensus (barely a consensus so far), and available specifications - namely
XML. We have OTOH mathematical and graphical tools, and computer processes
and languages. We try to build something consistent with all that material
to agree about. Where and on what ground will we construct this consensus,
if not at some natural language metalevel? Don't forget we'll have to
communicate afterwards to the rest of the world, every administrator and
editor and end user, what we are about.

Back to the quoted syntax and graph representation below. You claim they are
not equivalent. I'd like you to argument about it, and maybe tell more about
what you mean by "equivalent". What is proposed is a representation. I will
never claim there is any "proof of semantic equivalence", because I really
don't know what it means. What we need is an *agreement* on equivalence,
namely: I understand something in this syntax, and I understand the same
thing in this graph, and it seems I have a process to transform one in the
other, that could be implemented. Do you agree? And if not, why precisely?

Regards

Bernard - not "Bertrand" please :o))


[WMJ]

> (4) To illustrate value of equivalency/redundancy please review
>
> <association>
> <instanceof> <topicRef xlink:href="#web-publication"/> </instanceof>
> <member>
> <roleSpec> <topicRef xlink:href="#website"/> </roleSpec>
> <subjectIndicatorRef xlink:href="http://www.universimmedia.com"/>
> </member>
> <member> <roleSpec> <topicRef xlink:href="#webmaster"/> </roleSpec>
> <topicref xlink:href="#BernardVatant"/>
> </member>
> </association
>
> and attached graph (both copied from
> http://www.mondeca.com/site/products/bernard/semanticgraf.htm.
>
> They are suppose to be equivalent but they are not.
> Those are pitfalls when you join/merge mentally the artifacts that are
> disjoined physically. Integrated text/graph notation helps.
>
> Will Bertrand V. prove me wrong? The future will show -)
>
> Best
>
> WMJ