RE: What a URI means, was Re: erratum Re: resources and URIs

It is what is meant by "no identity without identification". 

The identity threads are mostly red herrings.  Identity is 
meaningless as a property value without a well-defined and 
testable operation for asserting an identity truth value. In your 
example, to prove the truth of the value, you build a case 
based on other values.  This is analogical and in no way 
inferior to a strictly logical assertion.  It demonstrates 
the reliance of the logical asserertion on the analogical 
process which affords context.  The language is as flexible 
as the case is reliable.

len

From: Graham Klyne [mailto:GK@ninebynine.org]

Is this really true?  If a social security number "identifies" a social 
security account (and nothing else), it can still be used to make reference 
to a person in a clause of the form "the person whose social security 
account is identified by social security number xxxx".   This doesn't seem 
like ambiguity to me, but a flexibility of language to express related
ideas.