[topicmapmail] Subject Identifiers metadata

[Thomas B. Passin]

Kal Ahmed wrote:

> I'm not talking about reifying a <topic> element or reifying some
> construct in a topic map processing engine. I'm talking about reifying a
> topic construct. In the "binding point" model of topic maps, the topic
> is essentially nothing but a place to hang assertions - in other words
> it comes into being by a user making an assertion about a subject. So it
> is the assertion that is created by the user, the topic being a
> side-effect.
> 

Well, now I don't undersatnd what you mean by "topic construct".  If you 
don't mean a topic element in an xtm document, and you don't mean a 
structure in a computer (that we conventionally call a "topic"), 
whatever do you mean?

In topic maps, a topic represents a subject for the purposes of computer 
processing.  If by "come into being by a user making an assertion about 
a subject" you mean that id a topic id is refered to (say, in an 
association) and no topic with that id is yet known to the system, then 
the system would construct a topic with that id, I would say that you 
now have a topic, so what is the problem (although you don't necessarily 
know its subject at this point)?

If you mean that some set of associations imply the existence of a 
subject that is up to now not represented in the computer by a topic, 
then you could have the computer create such a topic.

If you mean something else, would you please explain some more?

And I think we have to be careful about the use of the word "assertion". 
  It might be used to mean specifically an association in a topic map, 
generally in a normal English usage sense, or colloquially as a 
ahorthand for "statement" or "claim".  In the strict topic map sense, 
you can have associations (or call the "assertions" if this is the new 
jargon), but that refers to computer structures relating topics in the 
topic map.  They are but proxies for  the real subjects and the real 
relations between them.

I have a sense that several uses of the word are being mixed together 
here, but I may be wrong about that because I'm not sure quite what you 
are getting at.

Cheers,

Tom P