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Re: Shortcomings of Predicate Logic? (was RE: RDF I

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Shortcomings of Predicate Logic? (was RE: RDF Interpretation of XML documents )
• From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>
• Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 14:33:15 -0700
• Cc: tbray@t...
• References: <2C61CCE8A870D211A523080009B94E430752B83C@HQ5>

"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> If the thing being modeled is human, we don't
> model a machine.  His reply cuts both ways.

It is unfortunate that the use of words like "meaning", "semantic" and
"infer" encourage people to think that either predicate logic or the Web
is about teaching computers to think like people. The semantic web
technologies will allow computers to draw very basic conclusions based
on carefully constructed inputs, just as Excel can draw very charts
based on carefully chosen numeric inputs. It is, in my opinion,
off-topic to rejoin: "But humans don't do it that way." Humans don't add
numbers in the way computers do either. So what? As long as they add the
numbers or make the inference they can help us to solve problems. If the
semantic web is roughly as intelligent as a relational database it will
have succeeded...and it seems to have already exceeded that point.
-- 
 Paul Prescod

• References:
  • RE: Shortcomings of Predicate Logic? (was RE: [xml-dev ] RDF Interpretation of XML documents )
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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