[om-list] Subject / Schema Oriented Computing

[Mark Butler]

Subject / Schema Oriented Computing

I am working on subject oriented computing these days.  What is that you 
say?  Well, the foundation of object oriented modelling is the idea that 
you need only deal with a single, accurate representation of objective 
reality.  The language of object oriented modelling is not suited to 
situations where you have to keep track of what several different 
parties beleive to be true about the same object, let alone what one 
party believes another party believes to be true.

Given that object oriented computing is suited for an objective 
perspective where belief is irrelevant, I thought subject (or schema) 
oriented computing was a good name for any modelling technique that 
revolves around tracking multiple perspectives, especially perspectives 
on perspectives.

For example, if you are a negotiator, you need to know three things - 
what you know to be true, what your client believes to be true, and what 
the other side believes to be true.  Traditional object oriented 
modelling (not to mention scientific reductionism in general) only deals 
with the first.

These are the working definitions that I came up with today, for a model 
of genealogical knowledge I am developing:

 Schema 

   A qualified interpretive model of knowledge and belief. What an 
author personally believes or what he beleives another to beleive.

     Root Schema

       Direct beliefs of a primary author
       (e.g. what I believe now)

     Child Schema

       Beliefs or assertions held in the past or regarding the beliefs
    of others.

         Current Foreign Schema

           A child schema containing beliefs about the current beliefs
        of another
           (e.g. what I believe another believes). Also known as a
        diplomatic schema.

         Historical Foreign Schema 

           A child schema containing beliefs about the beliefs of an
        other at some time
           in the past or as represented in some creative work

           (e.g. what I believe another beleived at some time in the past)

           - foreign schemas may in principle be repeated to arbitrary depth
             (he said that she said that he said...)

         Historical Personal Schema

           A child schema containing personal beliefs held at some time
           in the past or as represented in some personal creative work
           (e.g. what I believed when I was young)


Schema Properties

      The author of a schema is the belief modeller,
      The author of a child schema is generally the same
      as (or closely related to) the author of its parent schema.

      The source of a schema is the subject who holds the beliefs
      being modelled. The source of a child schema may have no
      relation to the source of a parent schema.

 
Subject or schema oriented computing is major overkill for the natural 
sciences, of course, but it appears to be very useful in the social 
sciences and in the humanities, at least for the realists among them, 
anyways.

Comments anyone? 

   - Mark

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/om-list/attachments/20031007/c66f3f74/attachment.html