Re: a URI is a name (tel uri scheme and VCARD RDF)

Richard H. McCullough wrote:

> I have a problem with calling Linus Torvalds an "abstract thing".
> I would say that Linus Torvalds, the Torvalds document and the 
> Torvalds graph are all individuals -- concrete physical things.

Point taken. But (what kind of a thing Linus Torvalds is ) is a matter 
of your ontology.   Questions like whether Linus exists after his 
physical body is dust cannot be answered here and should be allowed to 
differ according to point of view.  But speaking strictly syntactically 
we can say, with hopefully very little debate, that Linus does not 
existe physically in the Internet information space in the same sense 
that a HTML or RDF document exists in that space.  Consequently to that 
space the acutal Linus (whatever he may be) is an abstraction.  That was 
the sense I meant.  Perhaps 'abstract' is the wrong word for it.  

Seth Russell

Received on Sunday, 24 November 2002 15:37:02 UTC