|
At 1:28 PM -0500 1/16/08, Mills Davis wrote:
Here are three more views of
context:
Context is discourse that surrounds a language unit and
helps to determine its interpretation.
That seems to be sense 2 below (because of 'discourse', which I
presume excludes mere text: if not, it also encompasses sense
1.)
Context is information that characterizes the situation
of an entity, person, place, or object, and includes
facts,
circumstances and conditions which ³surround² an
event such as its absolute and relative location in space and
time.
Unfortunately, that word "situation" also has many
meanings, so more exegesis is needed here. Two common but mutually
incompatible meanings of 'situation' are a state of the actual world,
and a limited collection of information about some state of the actual
world.
BTW, do you really mean to say that the context is
information? A time-interval, for example, is not information, nor
is a location.
Time-intervals and spatial locations are both reasonably
well-understood locators of truth, to be sure, with their own theories
and formalizations, but nothing seems to be gained by calling them
'contexts'.
BTW, if we know anything about contexts, it is that this
space/time/locator kind has virtually nothing at all in common with
the first kind. They satisfy different axioms and are mutually
incompatible.
Context is an abstract model of the variables that are
important and relevant to a mission or task.
variables?
Figuratively, context is the ³eye of the beholder.²
Context describes the salient features of a given environment,system,
or situation (here & now) within a problem
space.
feature = variable?
A
wealth of information is required to infer and interpret an object¹s
context.
Surely an object cannot just have a context, by itself. A bare
object has nothing to make some of its features more salient than
others. Must there not also be something that 'sets' the context: a
task, or a mission, or a beholder? And then isn't the context more
like a relationship between this mission-thing and the object
itself (?)
Relevance is determined by the type of object and
the current task of the user, e.g., making a phone call, doing e-mail,
writing a report. Contexts can be associated with to-do items,
projects, activities, etc.
Hmmm. Let me ask, is there any kind of thing that could NOT be a
context, or part of a context, in this third sense? Or can a context
be anything, or perhaps any set of any things? If (as I suspect) the
latter, then this is not a definition of anything, as it does not
identify any actual category.
Pat Hayes
On Jan 16, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Pat Hayes
wrote:
At 3:37 PM -0700 1/15/08, Sharma, Ravi
wrote:
Content-class: urn:content-classes:message
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C857C6.B8DBB90C"
Pat
I
would be happy to learn about what the group has already defined the
word 3Context2 to mean.
I said there were many :-) Not from 'the
group' (which group?) but from the broader community, including the
participants at the several context workshops, and contributors to
various journals. A few:
1. The surrounding or preceding text of
an occurrence of a word or phrase, which disambiguates its intended
meaning. Usually restricted to the immediate sentence.
2. Similarly, but applied to a
conversation, and meaning the 'common ground' (mutually agreed
beliefs, topics, etc.) of the participants at that point; usually
extends well beyond one sentence or utterance.
3. Similar to 2., but rather than common
ground, the actual physical setting of the conversation, the
'situation' in which it is taking place
4. A set of assumptions or beliefs
providing a temporary focus of reasoning and used to select particular
axioms or theories applied to a concept or concepts (aka
"microtheory")
5. A linguistic or cultural tradition
providing the origin of a text, and which must be taken into account
in order to fully extract the intended meaning of the
text.
6. Anything which satisfies the axioms of
some 'theory of contexts'. This of course depends on the theory: they
tend to be very weak theories.
That will probably do for a
start.
Pat
Thanks
for your help in anticipation of the same and any links relating to
the same.
Best
Regards.
Ravi
(Dr. Ravi Sharma) Senior Enterprise
Architect
Vangent, Inc. Technical Excellence Center
(TEC)
8618 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 310, Vienna VA
22182
(o) 703-827-0638,
(c) 3132041740 www.vangent.com
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 3:04 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Scheduling a Discussion [was: CL,
CG, IKL and the relationship between symbols in the logical
"universe of discourse" and individuals in the "real
world"]
At 11:58 AM
-0700 1/15/08, Sharma, Ravi wrote:
Context:
Think of
No, no. We
are a long way past "think of"-style brainstorming. Give us
your actual *definition* of 'context'. Or choose from the large
variety that have already been proposed. If you have no definition,
please come back when you have clarified your thinking well enough to
make a useful contribution, so that the rest of will have some inkling
what it is that you are talking about.
concatenation of ideas, also precursor
discussion link, also
from computer memory stack based on pointers where non-contiguous
chunks
of relevant executable code reside.
There are context switching exercises in cultures and people
have
practices of
switching up to eight contexts in a round table
So a context
is something that can be picked up from a table? A physical object?
That IS a new idea. Details??
Pat
and
picking
in each
cycle from where they left in the last round in a round-robin
fashion.
Ravi
(Dr. Ravi Sharma) Senior Enterprise Architect
Vangent, Inc. Technical Excellence Center (TEC)
8618 Westwood Center Drive, Suite 310, Vienna VA 22182
(o) 703-827-0638, (c) 3132041740 www.vangent.com
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F.
Sowa
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 1:45 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Scheduling a Discussion [was: CL, CG,
IKL
and the relationship between symbols in the logical "universe
of
discourse" and individuals in the "real world"]
Duane,
I did not read that document in detail, but from just skimming
it,
I could not
find a definition of the word 'context':
> In an effort to share what Adobe means/is doing in the context
arena,
> there is a document that explains some aspects we are
technically
> linking together for our LiveCycle Enterprise Suite Business
Activity
> Monitoring (BAM) servers here:
>
> http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_bamworkbench
>
> Section 2 is a good place to start or just search for the
term
> "context". I hope this sheds some light on our
interest.
That section talks about "context data", but it does not
give
a definition of the word 'context'.
From what I can gather, the document seems to use the word
'context' in roughly the same way I was suggesting: it is a
syntactic notion that identifies a context by a reference to
some container of the relevant data. It does not state any
axioms for anything remotely resembling a "context
logic".
John
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared
Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC
(850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home
40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
Pensacola
(850)202 4440 fax
FL 32502
(850)291 0667 cell
phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC
(850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home
40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
Pensacola
(850)202 4440 fax
FL 32502
(850)291 0667 cell
phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config:
http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC
(850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home
40 South Alcaniz St.
(850)202 4416 office
Pensacola
(850)202 4440 fax
FL 32502
(850)291 0667 cell
phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us
http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (01)
|