Re: Uniform access to descriptions

On Apr 13, 2008, at 8:09 PM, Michaeljohn Clement wrote:

> Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
>> On Apr 13, 2008, at 6:17 PM, Michaeljohn Clement wrote:
>>> But you are wrong, there is no such thing as a byte-copy of an
>>> information resource (in the AWWW sense).  Obviously a clear
>>> definition of what an IR is has been hard to come by, but it is
>>> not something of which one can take a byte-copy.  Any such thing
>>> would be an awww:representation.
>>
>> Like anything at all, a awww:representation is a resource. One might
>> argue, to make what you say true, that an awww:representation is  
>> not an
>> IR, but I think that this would be difficult to support with the  
>> current
>> definitions.
>
> Thank you, you are correct.
>
> Let me try again:
>
>  But you are wrong, there is not necessarily any such thing as a byte-
>  copy of a given information resource (in the AWWW sense).  Obviously
>  a clear definition of what an IR is has been hard to come by, but it
>  is not necessarily something of which one can take a byte-copy.
>
> Would you agree with the above?

I think what you are saying is probably correct, given the cluster of  
things that have been proposed as candidate for what an IR can be.  
But I think you should be suspicious about something called an  
information 'anything' for which we can't make an exact copy. The  
sorts of things usually associated with not being able to be copied  
(sent over the wire) are non-IRs.

-Alan

Received on Monday, 14 April 2008 01:48:49 UTC