In recent discussions of identity, I have seen statements that OWL reasoners could infer that two or more representatives stood for the same subject.
That’s useful but I wondered if the inferencing overhead is necessary in all in such cases?
If a user recognizes that a subject representative (a subject proxy in topic map terms) represents the same subject as another representative, a declarative statement avoids the need for artificial inferencing.
I am sure there are cases where inferencing is useful, particularly to suggest inferences to users, but declared inferences could reduce that need and the overhead.
Declarative information artifacts could be created that contain rules for known identifications.
For example, gene names found in PubMed. If two or more names are declared to refer to the same gene, where is the need for inferencing?
With such declarations in place, no reasoner has to “infer” anything about those names.
Declared instance inferences (DI2) reduce semantic dissonance, inferencing overhead and uncertainty.
Looks like a win-win situation to me.
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PS: It occurs to me that ontologies are also “declared instance inferences” upon which artificial reasoners rely. The instances happen to be classes and not individuals.
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