Re: Ambiguous names. was: Re: URL +1, LSID -1

Marijke Keet wrote:
> and by analogy, then there is no real Eric Jain, just a webpage with 
> that name, a blog, an URL http://eric.jain.name/, some database records 
> in the uniprot HR systems with a string "Eric Jain" and related data, 
> email trails in the hcls archive.... and, well, any person that does not 
> have a representation in some software system does not exist either....

Well, maybe I don't ;-)

> just because proteins are smaller than persons does not make them into 
> mere abstractions--thingies of your imagination that only materialise by 
> means of their representations in some information system. proteins were 
> around for quite a while before you imagined them as mere abstract 
> concepts, and will be so after you and any representation of 
> proteins-as-records-in-an-information-system cease to exist.

The problem with proteins is that I haven't seen any biologists agree on a 
  general way to determine whether two proteins are the same or not, and in 
fact you could argue that the concept of any specific protein is a helpful 
simplification that allows people to get their job done -- but depending on 
what your job is, the optimal simplification may of course differ!

With people, I think there is less of a problem: If there is any 
uncertainty about whether two people are the same, this is more likely due 
to lack of knowledge than to different ideas of what a person is (though 
I'm sure there are a few gray areas here, too)...

Received on Monday, 16 July 2007 10:33:35 UTC