Thomas B. Passin wrote:
Kal Ahmed wrote:
I was talking about the thing that we conceptually use to represent a
subject - irrespective of its representation in some computer system. We
conceptually require this thing as a place to hang our statements about
the subject (assertions), but in itself it provide *no information at
all*.
You mean the concept or notion of a subject in general? Fine, we can
have a topic for that and even give it a PSI. However, if you want to
talk about the subject indicator of a specfic topic, you have the
topic's identifier to use as a reference - not of course for the subject
identifier but for the topic whose identifier it is.
Tom,
I've been watching you and Kal go around on this one for awhile
now, and neither of you seem to be getting any closer to an
understanding. Not having been present during the conversations
I believe Kal is alluding to, you seem to be having trouble
catching that what he's talking about has nothing to do with
computers or computer systems, that the concept of "the thing
we hang topics off of" (what Steve Newcomb and Eliot Kimber at
one time were calling a "binding point") *doesn't* exist in the
same way that a mathematical point doesn't exist (except as a
point), which is the reason that there's no way to reify it. In
the conceptual model for topic maps we didn't include the concept
of binding point, but it assuredly both exists and doesn't exist,
just as the thing that can't be reified because its only purpose
is to *be* a binding point for topic characteristics that exist
but don't exist, except in a vacuum. This is in essense the "topic
identity" and should not be reified because it does not exist. If
it existed we could put a cherry on top of it and eat it.
I hope this clears everything up.
Murray
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
The Resume of George W. Bush
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/04/23_resume.html
|
