Google Semantic Search

In a prior post I examined the Google PageRank system.  It is a method for providing search results.  A TED talk pointed out that a test of the method provided results determined by the nature of prior searches unique to an individual.  Consequently it was concluded that Google search results may to some extent present information to individuals that they "want" to see and possibly confirming ideological convictions.

Google is introducing a new search methodology based on semantic examination of what an individual means they are looking for and connecting the meaning to search results information about an entity. The new method will apparently not replace PageRank but be an user oriented search enhancement to improve the utility of the results.

Semantic searching will search an entity database.  A data base containing information about persons, places and things.  The story did not use the word "nouns" but that is what the entities are.  Information about the nouns in the database are called its attributes (elements, characteristics).

Semantic searching is simply an interface with an object oriented data base.  In that data base the objects all have known attributes.  Among those attributes is to be found the information that the search seeks.  The search finds the object entity thing of interest and its attributes.

Bingo!  The search finds what the thing being searched for a "is".  Every object entity In the object oriented paradigm not only has its own attributes but also its own methods by which it knows how to do something.  It is all just like a simple sentence structure of two nouns and a verb that are structured to convey meaning. 

This is the same method I use to discover what money is and what money does.  Hours are spent searching for the entity attributes of money.  When they are known then what money does becomes more apparent.  It becomes more apparent by reading search results connected to what money does.   By virtue of having learned something about what money is I can make connections in my head regarding what money does.  That is the more complex meaning of money since the most persistent information about a thing is what it is.  What a thing does introduces a magnitude of possibilities. 

It appears to me that Google is becoming more like the human brain.  Doing the basic leg work to identify what the thing of interest is.  Maybe presenting some primary branching selections to follow about what a thing does.   A thing always does whatever it does in connection to another thing.  While Google might present possibilities the human mind still has so much greater ability to apply its own direction to the search path selection by connecting the thing to the association it has in our minds with doing something.

Semantic search presents results that are a best fit to the meaning of what we are looking for.  It takes us one more step down the machine knowledge information structure path that is an aid to human thinking. 

If Google Semantic Search was available today it would get me to where I want to go much quicker!