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

To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Rich Cooper" <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:14:25 -0800
Message-id: <5F2F064711C142FE92423A1070630B3F@Gateway>

Dear datum describers,

 

Let’s suppose that a “datum” is a statement about anything.  It is a statement describing a projection that some interpreting agent can express.  I can describe a unified, interpreted Thing using a plurality of datums (often, “data” represents “a bunch of datums”). 

 

That datum can be expressed as a string of characters, a sequence of words, a mathematical constraint _expression_, a video, a document, or any other _expression_ you can think of. 

 

So if you want to represent it as an FOL Thing, with properties, relationships, instances, and the usual expressions of the Thing, the infrastructure is already available from past representations in math. 

 

But most of the datums I see every day are far more complex than a few FOL statements can describe.  Things are very, very complex, in the typical case of the internet of things. 

 

Below are some expressive descriptions of Things in that sense, and therefore of datums.

 

Here is an impassioned and broad description of what users of the “internet of things” will be able to work with:

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

 

The really nice thing is that the presenter doesn’t use the many trifling analogies that are confined to logic, the w3c, or agendafied organizations; he discusses the useful everyday effects which we as individuals will experience. 

 

He picks out some example effects, which he bases on common daily problems and challenges we have to manipulate.  He doesn’t go into HOW any of it is done, and doesn’t try to force fit his structuring to any standards whatsoever.  He presents it as though there will be common approaches which evolve due to their usefulness, not due to standards which are imposed by some group. 

 

He paints a picture in which all people using the evolving web are free to choose their goals, tools and approaches, to evaluate by their own value systems, to describe, store and communicate ideas in their raw form using whatever modeling representation is available to them. 

 

I recommend it.

 

The presenter is Kevin Kelly, who also has other TED talks on the same theme.  Here is his talk on “How Technology Involves”:

 

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_how_technology_evolves.html

 

He claims there is a fundamental difference between how technology evolves and how biology evolves.  Specifically, once a biological class has become extinct, new classes can’t evolve from that extinct class, and by definition extinct classes have no instance classes. 

 

But with a technology class, the parts can be reorganized, recombined into new classes through the magic of interpreters.  So he concludes that technology classes never fade out.  He makes a substantial case to support that by showing that stone knives and axes are still being made, though there are other classes which are far better in every figure of merit, but were still being made today, and sold in the New Earth Catalog, on the web, and so forth. 

 

It’s a very interesting analogical projection from biological classes through technological classes, their similarities and differences.  I highly recommend it. 

 

 

-Rich

 

Sincerely,

Rich Cooper

EnglishLogicKernel.com

Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com

9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2


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