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Re: [ontolog-forum] effective juxtaposition

To: "Deborah MacPherson" <debmacp@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:54:42 -0600
Message-id: <p06230904c1daa8271215@[10.100.0.26]>
>RE interoperability between CAD, BIM, GIS I think many processes being
>developed for physical space could applied to semantic space at the
>same time.    (01)

Hmm. While I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, let me suggest 
that this particular overloading of "space" might be misleading. 
Physical space has a very special structure: it is 2- or 2.5- or 
3-dimensional, usually taken to be continuous or very close to it, 
often treated as a subset of R|n, has a meaningful topology and 
mereology, supports a variety of well-known algebras, etc.. But none 
of this applies to semantic "space". Or perhaps better, there isn't 
any evidence that any of it applies to semantic space, because nobody 
has a really convincing notion of what semantic space is really like. 
The best (ie not so obviously inadequate as the others) notions seem 
to involve not a continuous topological space but something more like 
a lattice (cf. the WordNet hypernym/hyponym structure) or a 
relational algebra (databases) or relational structure (logical 
concept models). Now, all of these can be called "spaces" in some 
mathematical sense, but that doesnt mean very much since almost 
anything with a structure can be called that, and the various 
mathematical senses are very different, and support very different 
kinds of mathematics. For example, basic topological facts like the 
Jordan curve theorem (to get from inside to outside, you have to pass 
through the boundary) are just plain false in lattices and relational 
models.    (02)

Still, all that said, if you CAN find useful cross-overs, I agree 
they would be great to have.    (03)

Pat Hayes    (04)


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