From philosophy and mental-models to semantic desktop research : theoretical overview

This paper examines issues on Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cognitive Science and Mental Models. The paper provides a philosophical grounding for the researchers in Personal Information Management (PIM). An overview is given on various philosophical aspects of computer-based activities. Discussions on the theories relevant to understand the goals for the Semantic Desktop community are elicited. Philosophical theories are not immediately transparent to the programmers, but the ideas discussed here are intended to emphasize a theoretical foundation, with respect to Semantic Desktop long term goals. The goal of this paper is to examine the theories of Philosophy and to provide a conceptual idea to design user-intuitive Semantic Desktops. The paper tries to induce scientific curiosity among the Semantic Desktop researchers as well as to develop the future Semantic Desktops to realize Weak AI. -- Mental model ; knowledge management ; semantic desktop