Theories of Meaning for the Internet of Things
Michael Färber, Yulia Svetashova, Andreas Harth · Language, cognition and mind · 2021
Abstract In this chapter, we consider the theoretical foundations for representing knowledge in the Internet of Things context. Specifically, we consider (1) themodel-theoretic semantics(i.e.,extensional semantics), (2) thepossible-world semantics(i.e.,intensional semantics), (3) thesituation semantics, and (4) thecognitive/distributional semantics. Given the peculiarities of the Internet of Things, we pay particular attention to (a) perception(i.e., how to establish a connection to the world), (b) intersubjectivity(i.e., how to align world representations), and (c) thedynamicsof world knowledge (i.e., how to model events). We come to the conclusion that each of the semantic theories helps in modeling specific aspects, but does not sufficiently address all three aspects simultaneously.