Re: A#B where A redirects to C#D ('tertiary resources')

Funny, I saw that there was a reply and thought to myself "I bet that's Pat..."

Take my question "how can an element have a representation?" not as
rhetorical but as a genuine request for information.

Elements seem mathematical to me (they're either bit strings or tree
structures), and Tim has ruled out "representations" for mathematical
things. But I don't really care - even if you decide elements have
"representations", you'd have the problem of figuring out what those
"representations" are and what their fragments are. Either the specs
or some forceful personality would have to say (since there is no
definition of "representation" that would allow "x is a current
representation of y" to be falsifiable), and neither does.

Supposing that elements were representable, how would that improve
matters? You would say that A#B is the B fragment of a representation
of the element C#D. OK, that's fine... maybe there's no problem, maybe
this can be a convincing story. Then we should document the reasoning
that gets us to that conclusion.

I guess I've given up on trying to define the webarch terms, since
every such attempt gets booed down, and generally treat them as
unknowns to be solved for, given some axioms about them. So the focus
should be on the axioms. If we can agree on those, then everyone can
choose the interpretation that makes them happy.

Anyhow, didn't you once tell me that seeking definitions was a vain endeavor?

Jonathan

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 2:26 PM, Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote:
> It would be a great aid towards being able to understand what this discussion is about if the terms "resource", "fragment", "element" and "representation" were defined or at least elicidated somewhere. Apparently, for example, you find it hard to believe that an "element" can have a representation. Why is this considered puzzling or odd? What is it about "elements" which makes them unrepresentable (in your sense)?

Received on Saturday, 30 October 2010 19:22:37 UTC