Re: [ontolog-forum] What is Data? What is a Datum? 2013-01-09-0930

[Adrian Walker <adriandwalker@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

John Sowa:.  Each pair becomes a proposition

> when the instances are inserted in an appropriate schema:
>
>      "The person named _________ has the telephone number ________."

Ed BArkmeyer:  I disagree.  That is, the meaning of each pair in the telephone directory is a proposition of that form, and the pair is a datum. It is not necessary to express the sentence per se.

I'm reminded of Bill Kent's famous comment that sank the proposed sentence-free "universal relation" :

     person has horse, horse has birthday, therefore person has birthday

In a deductive context, surely you need the sentence to avoid that kind of wrong inference?  

Note that RDF typing allows horse=horse in the above, so it alone won't keep us safe.

                             Cheers,  -- Adrian
                  
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Adrian Walker
Reengineering
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