[topicmapmail] Re: How to best model relations with mode (assertive, modal, intention, negation) with topic maps?

[Jack Park]

Alexander Sigel wrote:
> Dear topic mappers,
>
> thanks for the answers by Lars Marius Garshol, Dmitry Bogachev and
> Patrick Durusau concerning my question on
> how to best model associations with different modes.
>
> This modelling should be elegant, but also display the names of the
> association types as seen from the role player scopes correctly for all
> modes.
> I still did not figure out how to do this (See also my second posting of
> 2006-10-17).
>
> I think every of my association types has two role player types (e.g.
> cause and effect).
> In addition, mode is some simplified logical operator which seems to be
> a mix between:
> * how many people claim a statement (majority or minority view)
> * if the statement holds FOR ALL or only FOR SOME instances.
>
> #1: IS: it is generally held that true FOR ALL instances
> #2: MAY: it is generally held that true FOR SOME instances
> #3: CLAIMED: only some claim that true (FOR SOME or FOR ALL instances??)
> #4: NOT: is is generally held that NOT true (FOR ALL instances??) 
>
> In the following, I'll go through the answers one by one:
>
> <snip>
>   
> (lmg)
>   
>>  (2) This statement is qualified, in the sense that the represented
>>      fact is not 100% certain.
>>     
> No. It is not about certainty, but rather about quantifiers: FOR SOME
> instead of FOR ALL.
> I'd rather put it like this:
> Typically, there is not a dispute on this fact.
> But the fact is not true for all cases, only for some.
>
> E.g. "cancer cells IS_IN_PLACE_OF [2] lungs"
> means that lungs MAY INCLUDE cancer cells,
> whereas "cancer cells IS_IN_PLACE_OF [1] lungs"
> would mean that all lungs include cancer cells.
>   
<snip>
This particular example caught my eye. I guess I want to know more about 
the purpose or intention or goal of a topic map containing such an 
assertion. Would this be a "tutorial" topic map, a "diagnostic" topic 
map, an index of information resources about cancer? Is location or 
containment the right way to model populations of cancer cells existing 
in particular organs or tissues? What about mereonomy here?

I guess that for purposes of making an example of a particular 
assertion, "cancer cells is_in_place_of lungs" is a reasonable 
statement, but, for me, it raised more issues than it satisfied. Perhaps 
that is because I have some familiarity with that territory. If reading 
such a map, I'd want to know more, and that curiosity plays to a 
particular passion/concern, that being the use of topic maps for 
modeling important universes of discourse. I don't see modeling as 
trivial. Far too many choices to make if one is to craft a topic map 
that goes beyond ontologies to federate human discourse.

My first thought about this example was "can_have_population_of" or 
"may_contain_population_of" I suppose I am reacting to "is_in_place_of". 
One might think of that as trying to sift fly specs out of pepper, but 
modeling assertions properly (whatever that means) is an important role 
for topic mappers. Besides which, does this topic map specify which kind 
of "cancer cells"? If it's a diagnostic map, then, to be useful, it 
needs to say more than "cancer cell", and that would come after one 
modeled the symptoms and clinical findings, all coupled together as a 
subject in its own right. People with leukemia have "cancer cells" 
potentially in every tissue in their body. In other circumstances, would 
"cancer cells" in the lungs be small-cell, non-small-cell, carcinoid?

I don't mean to drive the example to death, but it did catch my eye 
since I saw it as an unusual (whatever that means) way to model modal 
assertions in a particular domain. I suspect that modeling modal logic 
is way larger a subject than can be handled in a few emails. Peirce, I 
am to understand, never did finish his gamma existential graphs, which 
are said to model modal logic.

Cheers
Jack