Theories of Semantics on theWeb - Social Semantics: The Search for Meaning on the Web - page 102

Fig. 4.3 The causal theory
of reference for URIs
AUR
UR
Owner
owner's intention determines the referent, after the minting of the new URI for the
resource, the intended interpretation is somehow never supposed to vary (Berners-
Lee 1998a).
To apply the causal theory of reference as to URIs, baptism is given by the
registration of the domain names, which gives a domain name and legally binding
set of IP addresses, such as example.org , a legally binding owner. Of course, the
natural question then would be if this Kripkean practice can then be extended
to entire URIs such as http://www.example.org/Eiffel ? For most domain names a
specific policy given by the owner could set the allowed referents for the creation
of URIs that involve the domain name in question, perhaps as embodied in some
software system. One could imagine several variations on this theme, from the
URIs being controlled indirectly by systems-programmers to URIs outsourced to
the general public in the form of a user-generated URI registry with a single top-
level domain. Regardless of the details, the referent of a URI is established by fiat
by the owner(s), and then optionally can be communicated to others in a causal
chain in the form of publishing a web-page accessible from the URI or by creating
Semantic Web statements about the URI. This causal theory of reference for URIs
is illustrated in Fig. 4.3 .
In this manner, the owner of the URI can thereby determine the referent of the
URI and communicate it to others, but ultimately the act of baptism, and so the
determination of the referent, are in the hands of the owner of the URI, the self-
professed 'expert' in the new vocabulary term introduced to the Semantic Web by