[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Marketplace XML Vocabularies
Mike (Sokolov): [cc's pruned to just the list, not individuals] At 9:23 PM -0500 1/4/10, Liam R E Quin wrote: >>> I claim that there is no intrinsic meaning in an XML >>> document, but rather that external knowledge is applied to >>> infer meaning.... At 10:00 AM -0500 1/5/10, Mike Sokolov wrote: >... eventually this line of argument will lead to the erosion of all >meaning, or at least all "intrinsic" meaning. Is that your point? >If not, what sort of construct do you think does have intrinsic >meaning? ... Here's a paper that argues that any kind of information (in this context, any XML document or any specification for an XML-based language) has no intrinsic meaning. It says, "Information, it turns out, is simply the vehicle by which we attempt to provoke - or evoke - a human response.... Meaning is a mental thing and is only ever tacit, that is to say, 'in us'." "I = 0 (Information has no intrinsic meaning)" F.J. Miller, Principal Consultant, Fernstar. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Information Research, Vol. 8 No. 1, October 2002 <http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper140.html> That said, in my crude journeyman work with XML-based languages I would say that describing a relationship between XML language statements and something in the real world (or at least the world outside the XML-based language) is what assigns meaning. A document written in the XML-based language doesn't have intrinsic meaning. e.g. <ISBN>0-12345689-0</ISBN> -- no intrinsic meaning "this language includes an <ISBN> entity" -- no intrinsic meaning "the ISBN entity marks a string which shall be interpreted as an International Standard Book Number as defined by ISO 2108. -- assigns meaning But I'm no language philosopher either. Or even a skilled XML developer. -- --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh@jdlh.com http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/) multilingual websites consultant 157-2906 West Broadway, Vancouver BC V6K 2G8, Canada Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953
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