Re: URIs: resources and contradictions was: Re: httpRange proposed text

Chris Lilley wrote,
> On Friday, August 2, 2002, 9:37:41 PM, Norman wrote:
> NW> / "Jonathan Borden" <jonathan@openhealth.org> was heard to say:
<snip/>
> NW> | This is true by definition (indeed an axiom)
>
> NW> I'm not sure how to reconcile your statement that this is
> NW> axiomatically true when I believe it is obviously false.
>
> You can make it true by defining a resource as 'what a URI
> identifies'. Sinc eresources, like neutrinos, are slippery little
> things trhat can only be observed by the traces they leave in
> passing, it sort of make ssense and also makes the statement above
> 100% true.

That can be done, but it only goes to emphasize that this strategy is 
tantamount to treating the web as an uninterpreted formal system, with 
URIs as symbols which are only meaningful within that system.

But this isn't helpful. Now we have the problem of trying to connect the 
formal model with the real world ... how people use URIs in practice. 
Given that this axiom is pretty clearly not operative in most peoples 
uses of URIs, all it does is open an unbridgeable gulf between the 
web as formalized and the web as used and talked about.

Cheers,


Miles

Received on Saturday, 3 August 2002 17:41:23 UTC