4 ms·

Is it not strange that the first example lists Cynthia Lennon as John Lennon's spouse instead of Yoko?

• tgv 4y ago
  It's just an example, but it does highlight another problem. If your model has a single spouse, it's going to be wrong. It needs a list, with time periods. But then, why stop at spouses? Surely you want to include relationships that were not sanctified. But why stop at single partnership? Some people have multiple partners. And people have more than romantic/partner-type relationships: parents, step-parents, children, friends, bosses, colleagues. People are going to extend the model, and not update the records, because that's a hassle. And there will be multiple versions of a record. What you'd really want is an entity that takes care of all of this, in one place. And not machine readable, because who is going to program a machine to find out the marriages of John Lennon? Something like an encyclopedia, perhaps.
  • jonnycomputer 4y ago
    It's actually a problem with the semantic web generally: it tends to assume that the world is compartmentalizable into neat categories. Instead, we live in a world where (a) membership in categories is partial (b) membership in categories is probabilistic (c) membership in categories is contested (see Pluto for an innocuous example) (d) definition, legitimacy, etc. of categories is contested (e) category boundaries are vague, e.g. Sorites paradox: Base step: A one day old human being is a child. Induction step: If an n day old human being is a child, then that human being is also a child when it is n+1 days old. Conclusion: Therefore, a 36,500 day old human being is a child. (f) membership in categories changes with time etc... There are hot things, and there are cold things, and then there are things that are neither hot nor cold.