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FW: First Order Logic and Semantic Web RE: NPR, Godel, Semantic W eb

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 08:13:56 -0500

Forwarded by request.

Len
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Jay Zhang [mailto:jayzhangsj@h...]

First, it is necessary to defend the relevance of Goedel
to the Semantic Web, although any attempt of direct link
seems a stretch. The justification is not so obvious to
compare TBL with Russell and Whitehead a hundred years
earlier.

The "disappointment" theorems symbolized by Goedel is
a way to support one simple intuition we tend to forget
occassionally: language (or data) is much larger than
logic.

Once we forget it, we begin to deduct math thru
logic or we begin to have AI to replace human decision
making. What is ultimately achieved is hardly more than
exhaustive searching algorithms.

SW inspires the vision that the system, when fed enough
information from an all encompassing network - the Web,
would be able to figure out what we need logically or
answer questions on the spot. This vision of Prolog at
large does hit theoretical walls!

I know that I am treading on dangerous water to elaborate,
but I still try.

>"Without a system of stereotypes ("for any" and "there
>always exists") to help us draw conclusions, a logic
>is only a brute force search algorithm on data. We
>failed to find a magic."
>
>"The Semantic Web could hit the wall of Goedel if it
>attempts to get meta-conclusions. Without
>meta-conclusions to work on, are we looking at a
>data search framework on the Web? In that case,
>inefficiency of formal deduction is an issue."
>

If we always draw on original data to answer "semantic"
questions, SW is just a distributed database where XML
is the DDL. If we envision the support of extensive and
fast decision making, we need to "warehouse" some
"likely" conclusions based on our data, such as: when a
person has Z or Q in his name, we assume he is from
mainland China; when someone has a Ph.D., it is ok
to assume that he is nearsighted. Every human being
(or even other animal) operates on these "stereotypes"
to achieve efficient decision making. When we accept
the risk and take these as truths, a first order logic
axiom system, if exists, would be what we need.

Regards.

Please repost to XML-DEV when you see fit.

Jay Zhang, Ph.D.
IntermicsTech, Inc.


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