Without collective knowledge, there would be no denotative meaning and hence no common ground for us to communicate on. We could not learn language without the consensus of words and people to communicate with. Our personal semantics would not evolve beyond primitive thought without that collective knowledge to link us together.

On the other hand, without personal semantics, connotative meaning would be just an infinite dissection of denotative meaning, and hence change in the common knowledge would be impossible. However, one person’s personal semantics can spread to other people, until a word’s denotative meaning changes. For example, 800 years ago the word ‘gay’ meant happy; now it means homosexual (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=gay&searchmode=none). Somewhere along the way, personal semantics spread until it changed the collective knowledge.

Also, new words are only possible when someone’s personal semantics forms into a word that interacts with other personal semantics until it solidifies into having a denotative meaning. So there would be no collective knowledge of semweb without first personal semantics.

Bob, that’s a good question. Personally, I think the semweb approach is designed to link data. What that data encodes is wide open. But you’ve hit on the aspect of semantics that really intrigues us: How do you represent personal and individually relevant semantics? Clearly, “meanings” that are universal and consensus-driven merely scratch the surface of our collective knowledge. Are personal semantics and collective knowledge mutually exclusive?

Thanks for the feedback.

Is the “semantic web” to be designed only for knowledge, or also for hypothesis, speculation, expression and personal meanings?

The “semantic web” is an approach to adding a layer of “meaning” to web resources. The dilemmas and problems in developing this layer of meaning seem focused on accuracy and knowledge – regardless of whether the semantic representation is an ontology or a folksonomy/folksology. The public nature of meaning is assumed to dictate a public consensus on meaning. But just as the “known” meaning of words is only the starting point of their use, so also the semantic web may need a broader view of semantics, in order to allow it to become a medium for personal expression

Welcome to the realm of Web Semantics.

As a welcoming piece of advice I would say, remember to exploit the “data by reference” methodology that the Linked Data Web gives us.

If you need any advice then please do come ask, I’ll be happy to help.

Talk to you soon,

Daniel Lewis