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

[jackpark at thinkalong.com]

It seems worth mentioning that there are several "tribes"
playing in the vast pool of activities that entail
knowledge representation (KR), knowledge management,
knowledge organization, information retrieval, topic
mappers, and so on.  Each of those tribes emerges and
evolves in some sort of ecosystem, usually one that offers
some form of funding (food).

Funding for a large, perhaps very large portion of KR has
been in the area of bottling up expertise to answer tough
questions and solve problems. We are getting pretty damn
good at hitting the moon, busting bunkers, and even ripping
people off (enron comes to mind here) with all sorts of
formalized realizations of human knowledge. Specific
knowledge. That's a whole collection of tribes well paid to
do such things. Topic maps can play specific roles in
there, but it's the ontologists and formal KR folks who
rule that domain.

Another tribal domain is much more concerned with plain and
simple understanding of what's going on. It seems to me
that perhaps Simon is trying to find an orbit in that
space. There, we are much more interested in representing
and organizing all possible world views, whether right or
wrong. Here, ontologies can supply highly-formalized and
heterogeneous world views, and the subject mappers can
federate those world views against same-subject criteria. I
am calling that "ontology federation"; I see that as a kind
of sub domain of "cultural federation", where no particular
world view, no matter how it is expressed, is given
privilege over any other world view.  Patrick Durusau and I
did a teleconference to the Ontolog community [1] where we
spoke to ontology federation (slides and an mp3 of the talk
are available). A long time before that, I was invited by
Steve Newcomb to deliver a keynote address to the Extreme
Markup Conference. There, I chose to speak to "connecting
dots" [2], a kind of prelude to federation ideas.

Kal's ideas behind shielding users are certainly
appropriate to those scenarios where satisfying the needs
of those who would surf federated universes is a goal.
Douglas Engelbart would argue that one should provide user
access to view specifications such that, as users become
more familiar with the views, they can change the views to
change levels of detail seen and so forth.

Topic mapping has nothing new under the sun to offer to the
KR community. After all, think about it for a while and you
realize that topic maps and subject maps are another way to
do frame-based KR. One asks what it is that the topic
mapping paradigm brings to the table, and my answer is that
it is the attention to the details of subject identity and
the rules/axioms associated with subject-centric merging
that are not necessarily new, but are a valuable *primary
activity*.  If giving precise answers according to some
pre-determined authority is what you want, thus far, the KR
community outside of topic mapping has had all the funding
to evolve the inference tools necessary to provide results.
If understanding some domain, some universe of discourse is
a goal, then, again, the ontologists are having a funding
field day creating heterogeneous world views on just about
every important subject imaginable. Subject maps offer a
way to federate those world views. I am not saying that the
KR community is incapable of doing this; I am saying that,
historically, their funding went in other directions.

Should topic mapping be measured with the same metrics the
KR community uses? Perhaps. Perhaps not. To the extent that
we make claims regarding provably correct query responses,
indeed, we should be measured against the same yard sticks.
To the extent that we play roles in mediation of world
views, perhaps not. There remains much to pioneer in the
area of tribal mediation. I think that party hasn't even
begun yet.

Jack
[1]
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2006_04_27
[2] http://www.nexist.org/em2002/


On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:18:41 +0100
 "Kal Ahmed" <kal.ahmed at networkedplanet.com> wrote:
>My approach of late has been to shield users from topic
>maps almost
>completely. There is really no reason at all why an
>application user needs
>to know about the underlying model for representation. 
>
>Shielding the user can be done by dumbing-down the model
>or by creating
>higher-level (often domain-specific) abstractions on top
>of it. For example,
>many users have a hard time getting to grips with
>"anything can be a type"
>and "associations can have any number of roles" amongst
>other features of
>topic maps, so defining an application that has a fixed
>set of types and
>maybe that restricts users to binary associations only can
>help. On the
>other hand there are some things that really require the
>full power of the
>topic maps model to be represented and that is where using
>patterns and
>higher level abstractions can help - e.g. abstracting the
>creation of
>hierarchies or thesauri; or creating domain-specific
>abstractions.
>
>That said, to do this effectively, a developer really has
>to have a handle
>on the underlying model. Sure, you might be able to wing
>it, but if you
>really know what topic maps are all about, your end-user
>will get a better
>application. The topic maps model is your tool and you
>will create better
>apps if you have a solid understanding of the tools you
>use.
>
>I can't answer for all the people on this list, but I
>suspect that a large
>proportion of them are similar to me - both a developer
>and a user. So both
>of the above apply - I want to be shielded from complexity
>by apps that dumb
>down or abstract away from the topic maps model, but I
>also want the full
>power of the model so that I can create those apps in the
>first place.
>
>Cheers
>
>Kal
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: topicmapmail-bounces at infoloom.com
>[mailto:topicmapmail-
>> bounces at infoloom.com] On Behalf Of Simon Grant
>> Sent: 08 June 2006 11:27
>> To: topicmapmail at infoloom.com
>> Subject: [topicmapmail] Not just Temporality in Topic
>Maps,but a whole
>> approach
>> 
>> 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
>> 
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