about Topic Maps and Knowledge Federation Five Questions about Topic Maps and Knowledge Federation by Dino Karabeg Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

The future of Topic Maps Question One The future of Topic Maps Now that the Topic Maps standards have been created - what remains to be done? Will there be Topic Maps 2.0? Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Question Two Topic Maps vs. RDF/OWL What are the advantages of Topic Maps compared to RDF/OWL? Any chances of ‘collocation’?

Designing the practice Question Three Designing the practice A Topic Maps resource site A Semantic Web tools site What can bring the TM / Semantic Web into popular use? How about designing the practice? Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Question Four Polyscopic Topic Maps Methodology, modular organization, structuring primitives? Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Metaphor-centric Computing Question Five Metaphor-centric Computing Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Axioms of subject-centric computing People think in terms of subjects Subjects give us a good framework for organizing information Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

(George Lakoff and Mark Johnson: Metaphors we live by.) “Metaphors […] are among our principlal vehicles for understanding. And they play a central role in the construction of social and political reality.” (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson: Metaphors we live by.) People think in terms of metaphors. University of Oslo Information Design George Lakoff George Lakoff

(Ulrich Beck: The Risk Society and Beyond) “I cannot understand how anyone can make use of the frameworks of reference developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in order to understand the transformation into the post- traditional cosmopolitan world we live in today. Max Weber’s ‘iron cage’ – in which he thought humanity was condemned to live for the foreseeable future – is to me a prison of categories and basic assumptions of classical social, cultural and political sciences.” (Ulrich Beck: The Risk Society and Beyond) Ulrich Beck We need to be able to free ourselves from the ‘iron cage’ of obsolete concepts. Fixing subjects (for ex. In an ontology) may in certain situations prevent us from thinking in new ways. University of Oslo Information Design

There is nothing new about metaphor-centric computing except perhaps the name - computing, same as so many other domains of discourse, has always been metaphor centric. Just think about the Windows, or the desktop, or the file, or the web and the web page... My point is only that we need to choose our metaphors consciously, not simply inherit them from the old media, which would also make us inherit the old practice and style of organization that hinders us from taking advantage of the new medium. Notice that I did not talk about ‘mountain-centric computing’. A mountain is just one out of many possible metaphors. Its purpose is to help us distinguish the large from the small, the essential from the superfluous. The mountain as metaphor also examplifies the conscious metaphor-centric approach - give the users a good metaphor, an organizing principle, and let them fill in the details of the structure themselves. Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Consequences We need to provide a metaphor and let the users fill in the details. (Some) ontologies need to be federated Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Metaphor-centric Computing Question Five Metaphor-centric Computing How about providing a metaphor (for ex. ‘mountain’) and mechanisms for users to federate their views and ontologies? A more complex picture of ‘subject identity’? Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo

Thanks! Dino Karabeg, OMS Group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo