A Functional Philosophy of the Web

Harry Halpin, <H.Halpin@ed.ac.uk>

Textorized Parthenon

Ph.D. Proposal, Edinburgh, April 2006

Introduction

Thesis

A philosophical analysis of the Web that relies on the construal of information and a definition of knowledge as public and explicit information leads to a functional framework for Web Services and the possibility of using Semantic Web knowledge representations as an ``open world'' type system for this framework. However, this notion of information and knowledge also undermine traditional notions of the individual as a basic ontological category.

Approach

We're going to have use an interdisciplinary approach from two rarely connected fields: philosophy and the World Wide Web.

Apologies for taking so long!

Philosophy of Computation? The Web?

Are Computers a valid subject matter of philosophy?

Is "Philosophy of the Mind" valid?

In this sense, the term "embodied" is a lexical band-aid covering a 350-year-old wound generated and kept suppurating by a schizoid metaphysics. M. Sheets-Johnstone

Why the Web? Why not philosophy of unicorns? Or Kings of France?

The Web is crucially important, unlike unicorns.

More Objections: Neural Salvationism (Churchlands), Consciousness First! (Searle), Reduction to Physics, Reduction to Mathematics

Tim Berner's Lee (in)famous Semantic Web Stack

TimBL's Semantic Web Service Stack Picture

Not so fast...

httpRange-14: Everything Must Have a URI?

The Eiffel Tower versus a web-page about the Eiffel Tower: Isn't there something fundamentally different? And what URI do you use for the Eiffel Tower qua Eiffel Tower?

Eiffel Tower Homepage

Eiffel Tower Picture

The URI of the web-page is clearly http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/.

The TAG definitions...

Information Resource

The distinguishing characteristic of these resources is that all of their essential characteristics can be conveyed in a message(Jacobs and Walsh, 2005)

Non-Information Resource?

Other things, such as cars and dogs (and, if you've printed this document on physical sheets of paper, the artifact that you are holding in your hand), are resources too. They are not information resources, however, because their essence is not information. Although it is possible to describe a great many things about a car or a dog in a sequence of bits, the sum of those things will invariably be an approximation of the essential character of the resource. (Jacobs and Walsh, 2005)

Using Shannon's Information Theory

Information Theory Picture

Two Problems

The Epistemological Assumption

The use of "knowledge" or "certainty" to define whether or not a sender has received a message, and exactly what they received.

The Metaphysical Assumption

The sender and receiver are discrete individuals (although not necessarily different, as it can be the same individual spread out over time)

Philosophical Reconstruction

A stack of philosophical and formal analysis for Web architecture

Harry's Philosophy Stack

The Epistemological Problem

What is Knowledge?

Since Plato knowledge has often been defined as \textbf{justified true belief}. It is unclear what ``justified'' means, and this definitions fall victim to the Gettier problems (Gettier, 1963)

Just what exactly is that "Extra Special Something" that separates knowledge from ordinary belief and even more ordinary information?(Williamson, 200)

Note that this presupposes knowledge is an individual psychological state. What does this have to do with information or knowledge representation?

Dretkse's Theory of Information

Dretske's Semantic Theory of Information

Key Observation: Telling someone how many bits they have does not tell them what information was transmitted.

Dretske's Definition of Information Content:

"A signal r carries the information that s is F iff the conditional probability of s's being F, given r and k is 1 (where k is the knowledge of the receiver)" (Dretske, 1984)

Dretske's Definition of Knowledge:

Information causually sustaining a belief (Dretkse, 1984)

Aren't these circular?

Knowledge as Public, Useful, and Explicit Information

Public

As being part and parcel of information, it has to be capable of being shared, and therefore "public"

Useful

Knowledge enables the possessor of the knowledge to commit a successful action. The definition of "success" is a dynamic norm rooted in the "cascade of Darwinian Algorithms" (Dennett, 2002) - related to neo-Fregean notions of truth.

Explicit

The information specifies to the possessor completely how to commit the successful action, i.e. a constructivist or algorithmic approach.

The Return of Representationalism

Just when dynamicism and anti-represenationalism had won...

Just as we enter the age of embodiment in cognitive science, the Web is leading our lives to be increasingly disembodied.

Good Old Fashioned AI in the form of knowledge representation is back on the Web Ian Horrocks Pat Hayes Jim Hendler

Extended Mind and External Representations

We remain agnostic about whether there are " internal representations "

Yet there definitely are external representations, External representations may not be secondary case, but may in fact be the primary case.

Thus the ability to " deal with the visscitudes and vagarities of earthly existence" via perfect digital memory and precise computation.

Via the Extended Mind, these external, digital representations are just as cognitive as any internal ones.

The Web provides a universal place to access representations...

As latency decreases...it may not be so disembodied after all.

But it's a Mess!

Too many standards - too little coherence

Picture of Too Many Standards

From XML Pipelines...

[Blah]

[blah,blah]

To the Lambda Calculus...

But it's a Mess!

[blah,blah].

From the Semantic Web...

[Blah]

[blah,blah]

To Type Theory

[Blah]

[blah,blah]

Functional Service Composition

Via the Typed Lambda Calculus

[blah,blah]

A Quick Glance at the Metaphysical Assumption

Our basic ontology presumes individuals

[blah,blah]

Network Intelligence

Blah!

[blah,blah]

Conclusions

Is this a unified picture?

From information to knowledge to logic to typed functions

References:

  1. Sheets-Johnstone M., Emotion and Movement, in Reclaiming Cognition, ed. Nunez R and Freeman W.J., Imprint Academic, 1999