- From: pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu>
- Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 14:57:10 -0500
- To: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Cc: w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org
>Brian McBride wrote: > > > > Dan Connolly wrote: > > > > > You trust that I have a birthday even though you don't > > > know it, right? By the same token, it seems easy > > > enough to accept that resources have URIs even though > > > those URIs aren't always specified. > > > > Forgive me butting in. Is the set of real numbers > > a subset of the set of resources? After all, they have identity. > > Note that URI's are countable and real numbers are not. > >That's the subtlety I meant to set aside when I wrote: > >| I think you've slightly overstated the case there, >| but the argument holds even the way you've phrased it, so... > -- Fri, 15 Jun 2001 09:20:55 -0500 > >The way he phrased it, every resource has a URI-name. >The way I see it, any particular resource can be named >with a URI; that doesn't mean they all have (unambiguous) names, >as you point out: all real numbers are resources; >only denumerably many of them can be named with URIs. > >Another subtlety that isn't relevant to the ID/about >issue is whether 'resource' is used in the general >sense of 'anything in the domain of discourse' >(i.e. things you can refer to using absolute-URIs-with-fragments) In general, there may be more things in the domain of discourse than one can name in the (any) language. Certainly there are if we start quantifying over sets, numbers, etc. . >or in the stricter sense of, roughly, 'something you can >get at via the network' (i.e. things you >can refer to using absolute-URIs-without-fragments). > >I'd like for the revised RDF specs to use 'resource' >in the stricter sense, but in speaking of real >numbers as resources, of course we're using it >in the general sense. As far as I can tell, nobody outside the W3C uses it in this sense. >The traditional logic-literature >term for the more general concept is 'object'; I'd >be happy to start using that in these WG discussions. Actually even that has some 'physical' baggage. The most universally inclusive term is probably "entity". Pat Hayes --------------------------------------------------------------------- IHMC (850)434 8903 home 40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office Pensacola, FL 32501 (850)202 4440 fax phayes@ai.uwf.edu http://www.coginst.uwf.edu/~phayes
Received on Thursday, 21 June 2001 15:57:12 UTC