Re: Possible new issue: Things with and without identity?

On Monday, September 9, 2002, at 08:44  PM, Miles Sabin wrote:
> A discussion point from the rest-discuss list which is probably better
> dealt with here,
>
>   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rest-discuss/message/2465
>
> At issue is the first sentence of the informal definition of resource in
> RFC 2396 1.1,
>
>   A resource can be anything that has identity.
>
> "that has identity" is redundant because *everything* has identity in
> the only reasonably straightforward understanding of identity, ie. the
> logical truth in all but the most obscure formal systems that,
>
>   (Vx) x = x

No, that is not the only reasonably straightforward understanding of
identity.  That is the specific mathematical axiom of identity and not
identity itself.  We already had that discussion on www-tag.

Everything does not have identity.  "Everything" includes both things that
have been identified and those that have not yet been identified.  
Something
only becomes a resource after it has been identified, but not necessarily
by a URI.

The definition is correct as it stands.

....Roy

Received on Tuesday, 10 September 2002 06:02:04 UTC