Building the Semantic Web Tower from RDF Straw

Abstract

A same-syntax extension of RDF to first-order logic results in a collapse of the model theory due to logical paradoxes resulting from diagonalization. RDF is thus the wrong material for building the Semantic Web tower. 1 The Semantic Web The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. [Berners-Lee et al., 2001] Thus the goals of the Semantic Web are very similar to the goals of Knowledge Representation—to provide means for representing information in a way that can be processed by machines. The base language of the Semantic Web is RDF [Manola and Miller, 2004], a simple representation language based on a graph structure. The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. [...] It is based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF), which integrates a variety of applications using XML for syntax and URIs for naming.