RE: NPR, Godel, Semantic Web

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Title:

So for some semantic applications, knowledge bases will be advisory. 
For example, having a database that can tell you which greeting in

which language is useful for a given time of day in a given locale given

a particular class of hearer, while mundane, is extremely useful and

the kind of thing a subject/object/predicate database does pretty

well.

 

Reasoning across dbs, well, that will be problematic.  RDF isn't

as interesting as the schemas declared with it and the logic for

using them.   Inter-domain reasoning, that is a big problem, so

I'd be leary of any predictions we will be able to go away and

let it think for us any time soon.  I'll go on reading the pizza box

for the forseeable future, but use my wireless connected to

the web when I need to remember how to say good night

in India.  A simple question, but when all you get to carry

is a cell phone, a simple question is about the limit.

 

Shubh ratri!

Len

http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com [mailto:Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com]

The bigger problem with the SW, as many have noted, is that Gödel will never hava a chance to screw up the works, because he only talks about the incompleteness of CONSISTENT sets of axioms.  Getting consistency in the SW's vast network of RDF metadata will be a monumental problem, and ANYTHING can be proven in with an inconsistent set of axioms (as my poor remaining neurons dimly recall my higher education).
So, at best the SW will have to employ some heuristics for finding useful axioms to feed into a logical inference engine.  Whether this is worth the cost is another matter.