On Sun, February 3, 2013 15:14, Ronald Stamper wrote: (01)
> Thank you for the pointer to Datomics where I found this: “Datomic info
> model: a set of facts … things that have happened . . . while the past
> may be forgotten, it is immutable.” (02)
> Not so. (03)
Huh? What you refer to below is attributions about propositions in
a changing social context. This does not change the past. Societal
features of past events are different in different contexts. As different
contexts become valid, not everything from the prior context(s) is
inherited. This does not mean that the past has changed. What is
true NOW about things in the past may be different from what was true
about those same things in a different (prior) context. (04)
> Along with directives, assertions etc, we also have, among our
> speech acts, palinodes to annul or retract propositions used to understand
> the world we share. The trodden foot may be expunged by a sincere
> apology; a court of appeal may quash a conviction etc. (05)
Such actions do not change the past; they change an understanding of
the past. As time goes on, context changes. What is true in one context
need not be true in another. For example: (06)
Barry Gibbs was not a suspect in October 1986.
Barry Gibbs was a murder suspect in November 1986.
Barry Gibbs was convicted of murder in March 1988.
Barry Gibbs was a convicted murderer in April 1988.
Barry Gibbs was exonerated of murder in September 2005.
Barry Gibbs was not a convicted murderer in October 2005. (07)
An ontology ought to be able to model this. (08)
> In the social world we continually make mistakes and
> not infrequently act on them irreversibly.
> We must take care not to base our information systems, most
> of which have social implications, on idealised physical theories. (09)
We must recognize that data may be incorrect. (010)
We must recognize that data may change; what is true at one
time may not be true at another. (011)
We must recognize that social categorization may be changed or
even voided. What is a law one day, may be nullified the next
after being ruled unconstitutional. A contract or contract clause
may be voided. A marriage may be annulled. A conviction or
arrest may be voided. An action that was criminal under a law
that was found to be unconstitutional changes its status to legal.
A marriage that was deemed invalid because the parties were
deemed ineligible to marry under a (say, miscegenation) law that
was later found to be unconstitutional, becomes valid once the
law is voided. (012)
In designing an information system, we must recognized what
questions may legally be asked and disallow the answering of
other questions. This may require the removal of information
from the system -- not only from the current system, but may
require restrictions on access to archived backups. (013)
For example, if a conviction was expunged, a request for prior convictions
should never return that conviction and if a person has no other
convictions the system should return that the person was never
convicted. The same should hold for arrests that were voided. (014)
-- doug foxvog (015)
> Ronald Stamper (016)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: 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 join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (017)
|