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

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:29:23 -0500
Message-id: <50EF5CE3.9070905@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On 1/10/13 5:41 PM, John F Sowa wrote:
> EB
>> >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.
> A telephone book gives us a list of paired values.  The intended
> propositions are derived by combining the values with some relations.
>
> Instead of quibbling about some email note(s), I suggest that we
> classify the kinds of data:    (01)

This could finally address some confusing colloquialisms typically 
associated with data -- which I've inserted beneath each of your statements:    (02)

>
>    1. Explicit statements of propositions in some language.    (03)

Structured Data since these are kinds of propositions are explicit.    (04)

>
>    2. Values (names, numerals, strings, etc.) in some kind of
>       structures (tables, lists, graphs) together with some
>       schema (implicit or explicit) for interpreting the
>       structures of values as propositions.    (05)

Semi Structured Data since these kinds of propositions are only *sort 
of* explicit, as exemplified by the coarse-grained semantics of an RDBMS 
schema.    (06)

Of course, RDBMS vendors would like to claim otherwise :-)
>
>    3. Values that have become detached from their explanations and
>       present a puzzle to be solved before they can be interpreted
>       as propositions.    (07)

Unstructured Data since these are ambiguous (fuzzy) propositions.
>
>    4. Etc.
>
> John    (08)


--     (09)

Regards,    (010)

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
Personal Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
Twitter/Identi.ca handle: @kidehen
Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/112399767740508618350/about
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kidehen    (011)

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