Re: The stupidest design I ever saw

Context is incredibly important, and yet almost impossible to model. Take the classic example of a corporation, which in US law is viewed as a person itself, with corresponding legal rights, that exists quite separately from the people who work in it. Is a corporation a person then? If we form an is-a relationship then are we then assuming then that a corporation has breathes or has a blood type? Of course not.

Clearly there is something more complex going on here than simple is-a relationships. "AI" cannot currently solve this complexity, and attempting to do so is fruitless without embodiment in the problem space (generating the 'common sense' we use to decide context).

And this brings me to my point - Formal Concept Analysis/RM etc, they are all just tools for us to use. We generate the meaning and interpretation of the stuff stored therein. That's why they work.

Garfield for example is not a cat. He is a cartoon representation of a cat, just as he is hence a cartoon representation of a mammal. If thats the important factor I want to model then that's what I can design my FCA to record, but the onus to supply the interpretation of what I create necessarily rests on me. Received on Tue Apr 11 2006 - 13:16:44 CEST