[om-list] Re: Cyc example

[Thomas L. Packer]

Mark

    So, in a sense, namespace is part of the [unabbreviated] name.  I guess
this could work.  But I envision an awful lot of namespaces, because, going
back to my example "God": how many conceptions of god are there?  A lower
bound would be the number of sects, religions and mythologies which have
ever existed.  An upper bound would be the number of people who have ever
lived (and maybe even including some which have not lived, if we count the
opinion of spirits, if any have been recorded in scripture, for example).

    About n-ary trees ... I'll have to think about this.  I didn't intend to
force the binary tree on common use, but I'm leaning toward being able to
reduce everything into a binary tree for some purposes.

    I've never had my hopes set on using conventional DB technology.

    Regarding communication, I concede.  I've had the same opinion for a
while, but apparently it has been a double-standard on my part.  I want
other people to communicate well, but it's a pain for me to have to.  I will
change this, however.

    But, I just want to say that, if you've ever read the writings of
Buckminster Fuller, the guy who invented the geodesic dome, then you'd have
to agree that I'm not even close to being as bad as I could be, in
communicating.  His writings are an absolute mess.

Ciao,
TomP

Omnia apud me mathesis fiunt.
-----------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Butler" <butlerm at middle.net>
To: "OM List" <OM-List at onemodel.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: [om-list] Re: Cyc example


Tom and other Packers wrote:

>     Therefore, (I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page),
> identical names is not a sufficient criterion for making the associated
> nodes identical.

If it is a identical *formal* name in an identical formal namespace, then
two
entities are identical by definition.

>     Conjecture: all knowledge can be represented as a list of expressions,
> each of which is a combination of (possibly nested) three-token lists.

I agree, but just because you can represent all knowledge that way, doesn't
mean it is a good thing to be forced to.  You can store English in a binary
tree, for example, but it is much more convenient to store it in an n-ary
tree
like LISP people usually do.

In regards to the meta-meta-model design decision, the main disadvantage is
that with a meta-meta-model, we will be unable to use conventional database
technology because it will be much too slow.

- Mark

--
Mark Butler        ( butlerm at middle.net )
Software Engineer
Epic Systems
(801)-451-4583

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