Re: In an RDBMS, what does "Data" mean?
From: Paul <paul_at_test.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:24:50 +0100
Message-ID: <aDTAc.16747$NK4.2936973_at_stones.force9.net>
>
> In this particular case, your deduction depends on some real world
> knowledge. In particular, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is"
> is. (Clinton). It's not obvious to me that Alan works where the department
> he belongs to is located.
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2004 10:24:50 +0100
Message-ID: <aDTAc.16747$NK4.2936973_at_stones.force9.net>
Laconic2 wrote:
>> From 'Alan is in dept 20' and 'dept 20 is on the second floor' >>we can use semantics to deduce 'Alan works on the second floor', which >>is a totally new predicate. I suppose we are implicitly defining a view >>or new predicate like
>
> In this particular case, your deduction depends on some real world
> knowledge. In particular, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is"
> is. (Clinton). It's not obvious to me that Alan works where the department
> he belongs to is located.
Well, semantics *is* real-world knowledge in this case. The fact that the deduction depends on real-world knowledge is the point.
But to write that down I need to encode it in a string. So when I say 'Alan is in dept 20', I really mean the real-world statement that says Alan works in a company in the department with ID 20. I'm supposing the semantics of what I said have the meanings that will make my statements true. Clearly it's not possible to perfectly represent semantics in an sentence written in a natural language, so I've just used a short-hand and implied the rest of the meaning (that everyone who works in dept 20 works on the second floor etc.).
Paul. Received on Sat Jun 19 2004 - 11:24:50 CEST