[topicmapmail] Not just Temporality in Topic Maps, but a whole approach

[Simon Grant]

Hello again.

I think I'm starting to see how to convey where I am on this kind of 
question - so I'm replying to myself (may I be forgiven... )

For me, it is really very little to do with formality, and certainly 
nothing to do with formal logic (though I have nothing against formal 
logic). Where I come to Topic Maps from is from seeing that the TM 
approach is more *humanly* reasonable than, say, just RDF.
(Not that I know anything significant at all about RDF.) I approach 
these matters partly from the perspective of human-computer 
interaction, and partly from cognitive science - how do we represent 
things in ways that are most closely aligned with human thinking, and 
therefore most easily understood by humans?

So really, what I would be interested in knowing is, how many people 
around here are interested primarily in semantics and human 
comprehensibility of TMs, and would like (for instance) to explore 
the ways of using TMs to represent human knowledge in ways that 
*feel* most comfortable to the people involved. My guess is that the 
majority here are interested in the formalities, the logic, the 
proofs - maybe in something close to mathematical elegance. Again, I 
have nothing against that in itself. Just that, for pragmatic 
applications, for communication, it is really useful to have 
representations that are as intuitive as possible. That is a 
different kind of constraint to the set of formal and logical ones.

Is there anywhere else where people of the kind I am talking about hang out?

Thanks

Simon

At 06:29 2006-06-05, Simon Grant wrote:
>I'm not (yet :-) ) an expert on Topic Maps but I do have some of the 
>same concerns.
>I expect to be considering how TM can play a part in e-portfolio systems.
>To me, it depends on the semantic role of temporality.
>
>In an e-portfolio setting, we will need to deal with all kinds of 
>records stored "out there" on various servers (who knows - blogs, 
>social software, whatever). Because it seems unnecessary and perhaps 
>undesirable to duplicate these records within a Topic Maps system, 
>perhaps they are best seen as occurrences - resources - rather than 
>topics. I don't know what sufficient reasons would be to motivate 
>representing any occurrences as topics in their own right.
>
>Perhaps one can distinguish two kinds of temporal "metadata" (though 
>I use that word with great caution) or attribute. One is 
>fundamentally inherent to what is recorded. In the case of a record 
>of an action, for example, the start and finish times/dates are 
>clearly to me inherent in the action. The other kind of attribute 
>could be seen as a superstructure or overlay of personal 
>significance. This would be of the type that a certain action (etc) 
>is significant as evidence towards something I want to share - say 
>my ability as a Topic Maps analyst. I see that as *not* inherent in 
>the record itself, and ideal for representing with TM.
>
>The confusing case - here is the semantic difference - would come if 
>I were, for instance, a historian. I might have a particular 
>interest in "The 17th Century" (or, equivalently, the years 1600 - 
>1700). This would be best represented as a topic, so that I can work 
>it in to my structures of personal significance.
>
>This brings me on to another angle. It may be of interest to me to 
>represent all kinds of things as topics of personal interest, but 
>alone, that remains a lonely situation. If my topics are either to 
>be shared with others meaningfully, or (perhaps even more likely) to 
>originate from a pool of common, shared meaning, then it would be 
>futile to have any hour of any day of any year as a topic. The 
>topics would not coincide enough to be of use or help or even 
>interest. It's a little like the threshold for getting into Wikipedia.
>
>In summary, I'm saying that my current view is that temporality will 
>be a record-centric attribute in most situations that I can think 
>of, much like location. But when a particular time period is the 
>focus of common, or potentially shared, interest, it might well be 
>worth representing a time period (or occasionally a moment, like the 
>moment you heard that Princess Diana had died) as a topic.
>
>I hope this makes some sense to you more experienced TMers.
>
>Simon