🚀 go-pugleaf

>>>>> "Stefan" == Stefan M�hlbacher <e&s@kabsi.at> writes:

    Stefan> knowledge is global symbols or identifiers.  How is it
    Stefan> possible to keep symbols unique when there is not only one
    Stefan> community creating new symbols but maybe some
    Stefan> thousands. 

Please  refer to  how  the DNS  (Domain  Name System  --- an  Internet
service that  every Internetizen is using almost  every minute) works,
particularly how the name  assignments are effectively and efficiently
organized and  maintained.  Note also  how the authority  of assigning
names  is  effectively  delegated  to  different  organizations  (which
numbers in thousands or tens of thousands).



    >> Who manages them?  A machine, or a human being?

    Stefan> First of all there should be a naming convention. Then
    Stefan> somebody has to keep the first context unique: This task
    Stefan> is similar to URL management in the internet. New symbols
    Stefan> can be invented by a human being or by a machine that
    Stefan> already knows the context.  (The resource description
    Stefan> framework is based on a similar idea
    Stefan> http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/).

You've only mentioned how the  names will be *created*.  How about the
maintenance?  Who *assigns* meanings to the names?




    >> Without anyone understanding it, how would you expect the
    >> programmers to implement and *debug* the programs?

    Stefan> I am currently debugging a program that uses symbols like
    Stefan> that. Now you know that the symbols are understandable,
    Stefan> but not very well.  Providing a map will make it much more
    Stefan> readable. Providing another map with symbols from another
    Stefan> natural language will make the knowledge translatable.  

So,  who's  going to  provide  that map?   Does  this  person need  to
understand the knowledge represented?



    Stefan> It is clear that the result is not yet a natural language,
    Stefan> but it is already understandable without big learning
    Stefan> effort, because the symbols are already known from a
    Stefan> natural language.

I don't think so.  Please tell  me which symbol in English maps to the
Chinese  ideograph <qing2>,  which is  an idea  covering  { "emotion",
"passion", "love",  ... } but not  being the union  or intersection of
them.  Even  translators find it  hard to translate the  isolated word
<qing2> into Western languages.



    Stefan> The advantage of this would be: nobody has to learn a new
    Stefan> language, the translation into a natural language is just
    Stefan> a matter of symbol mapping and syntax.

Wrong.   Translation is  not simply  word-for-word  replacement.  Very
often, word A in language X can  be translated into word P,Q,R or S in
language  Y,  depending on  context.   At the  same  time,  word T  in
language Y  may be translated  as words  B, C, D  or E in  language X,
again depending on context.


How is  your system going  to handle such  cases?  How will  idioms be
handled?  Will  your system  turn "it's a  piece of cake"  into "<na4>
<shi4> <yi1jian4>  <dan4gao1>" (literally: "that is a  piece of cake")
in Mandarin?  Will it become "Gxi estas eto da kuko" in Esperanto?



    Stefan> You are right. There must be at least some people that
    Stefan> know the internal representations.  But it is not
    Stefan> necessary for the big community to learn them.

This statement is  tautology.  The big community doesn't  have to know
all the words  in a dictionary (of the  local language).  Only experts
need to  do so.  The  big community doesn't  have to understand  how a
nuclear  power plant  works.  Only  experts need  to do  so.   The big
community  doesn't have  to know  quantum  mechanics or  how to  prove
Fermat's Last Theorem.  Only a few people would need to know them.


But if my memory is  function, you previous claimed that NOBODY needed
to  understand the  internal representation  in your  proposed system.
Now,  you  admit that  SOMEBODY  has  to  understand it.   Aren't  you
shooting yourself on the foot?



    Stefan> You are right again. Any representation can be written
    Stefan> down. What I meant here is that a global representation
    Stefan> will be better understood when converted in the sense of
    Stefan> the maps in the examples above. 

I don't think so.  What you presented above seems to be a construction
of a big dictionary.  You gave no idea on how syntax is to be handled.




-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     $(0,X)wAV(B(Big5)                    ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ) 
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| http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee                        e-mail: sdlee@cs.hku.hk |
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