Cart
|
[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: The Map/Territory Conundrum in Topic Maps vs. RDF
 [Simon St. Laurent:] > Multiple maps (which are themselves territories) for shifting > territories seems far more useful to me than the notion of single and > final maps for fixed territories. No one should mistake a topic map (for example) for the truth. All topic maps represent the opinions of their authors, and, inevitably, their world-views, as well. Opinions differ, and world-views conflict, even among reasonable people. Reasonable people, even in their everyday thinking, must make a distinction between (a) reality and (b) what people (including themselves) say about reality. Imprecision is endemic in the way people speak about "location", especially in computer-land. Even in technical conversations, it's rarely clear whether we're talking about a location in some sort of representation (such as something that is called a "map"), or in some other kind of universe, such as (for one example), the "real" universe. Therefore, despite Walter Perry's annoyance with the "platitude" that "The map is not the territory", we should emphasize this platitude. Part of the reason for this necessity is that people usually think fuzzily before they can begin to think clearly. Another part of the reason is that an enormous amount of marketing effort has been spent erasing the "map vs. territory" distinction from the minds of consumers. Microsoft's "Where do you want to go today" slogan is just one (actually comparatively open and guileless) example of what I'm talking about. The merging capabilities of topic maps were designed in anticipation of multiple conflicting maps for the same territories. The scoping facilities of topic maps can be used to prevent us from losing track of which topic maps contributed which assertions to topic maps that result from merging other topic maps. In this way, we can know who agrees (or agreed) with whom, because we can know whose opinions, as of what date, are reflected in each assertion. -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant srn@c... voice: +1 972 359 8160 fax: +1 972 359 0270 1527 Northaven Drive Allen, Texas 75002-1648 USA 
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! 
Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|
|||||||||
