- From: Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org>
- Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2012 11:36:18 +0100
- To: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
- Cc: Antoine Zimmermann <antoine.zimmermann@emse.fr>, RDF WG <public-rdf-wg@w3.org>
On 3 March 2012 11:35, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote: > On 3 March 2012 06:12, Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us> wrote: > >> Um...biology? (Do you seriously believe that a document can be a person? Even the US Supreme Court hasnt quite gone that far yet.) > > If a book with no words, just pictures, can be a document; or a book > written on parchment or bytes rather than paper, then why not a > tattoo'd person being a book? typo: I meant "tatoo'd person counting as a document" > You might argue that their physical body was just a carrier for the > document, and that the person wasn't themselves the document. The > relationship between a person and their body isn't something with a > tidy answer, any more than the relationship between a physical book > and the abstract document it carries has an obvious perfect formal > model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Requirements_for_Bibliographic_Records). > > Your use of "seriously" suggests the idea is obviously ridiculous, but > the restrictions you'd need on 'document' would likely rule out other > more obvious documents too. Perhaps you meant HTTP document? I have a > hard time imagining an HTTP document being a person, ... > > Dan > > p.s. > See also http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~buckland/whatdoc.html > > "Abstract: Ordinarily the word "document" denotes a textual record. > Increasingly sophisticated attempts to provide access to the rapidly > growing quantity of available documents raised questions about which > should be considered a "document". The answer is important for any > definition of the scope of Information Science. Paul Otlet and others > developed a functional view of "document" and discussed whether, for > example, sculpture, museum objects, and live animals, could be > considered "documents". Suzanne Briet equated "document" with > organized physical evidence. These ideas appear to resemble notions of > "material culture" in cultural anthropology and "object-as-sign" in > semiotics. Others, especially in the USA (e.g. Jesse Shera and Louis > Shores) took a narrower view. New digital technology renews old > questions and also old confusions between medium, message, and > meaning."
Received on Saturday, 3 March 2012 10:36:46 UTC