hi everyone, I would be very interested in reading what you understand when you hear/read semantic. I'm interested in everybody's understanding of the word i.e. whether you have the background to attempt for a definition of how semantic is generally understood in the KG community or your own understanding of it
The word has lost a lot of meaning (no pun intended) because, when it was originally getting trendy, marketing people started applying it to a lot of products that didn't necessarily deserve it. Despite a lot of activity with RDF and SPARQL, I stopped using the term "Semantic Web" 11 years ago: https://www.bobdc.com/blog/selling-rdf-technology-to-big/
thanks for your input Bob DuCharme. to be honest, it took me a veeery long time to take the time to look into what rdf are because this "semantic web" term souned like a fraud to me : I thought, "semantic" is what is related to meaning and meaning is a human thing, it did not make sense to use it about machine. Then I realised a lot of human competence are metaphorically used for machine, so why not this one. The question is what is exactly that it refers to, hence my question. In particluar, it is often not clear to me what is more "semantic" about the layer people call "semantic layer" , compared to other part of the system/architecture.
It can be as simple as saying that dm:locatedIn is an owl:TransitiveProperty in the example at https://www.bobdc.com/blog/trying-out-blazegraph/. We're storing a little bit of the "meaning" of "located in" in a way that lets us get more out of our data, as demonstrated by that blog post's example.
One question, some input, and an offer:
Are you formally working on a project asking these questions? What are your reasons for asking the questions? These sorts of questions, including your other post about 'semantic layer' are within some of my specialties, such as conceptual analysis, semantic analysis, clarifying concepts, terminological analysis & development, etc.
My reply to your similar question on 'semantic layer' has relevant input.
In general, the questions and answers cover a very large amount of content: common-sense understandings, academic philosophy, linguistics, computer science (e.g., formal semantics), etc.
Consider looking at dictionary definitions as a start, and compare to others in other material, from distinct disciplines and organizations.
As mentioned in my other reply, I have in-progress personal projects cataloging and comparatively analyzing concepts and associated terms relevant to these questions, including terms with 'semantic' in them. As well as raising meta-level questions questioning some aspects thereof.
In one of my publications, I specifically mention--in the context of AI and semantic modeling--the aspect of meaning as a human phenomena. But the historical and philosophical literature is replete with relevant discussion.
I've formally studied philosophy and related disciplines, by degree and otherwise. So I can help if there is some project here. My content from 5 above may be relevant.
I'm available for formal work collaborations (i.e. hire). So I can offer that. Please contact me or schedule a meeting at this link.
I was (trying to) collect people in the KG fields' understanding of the word "semantic" to feed my own thoughts on different aspects: terminology (what are the boundaries of semantics, since human beeing make sense of anything, I wonder what would not be semantics ...) and also the use of word coined to designate humain competence that are now used for machines
