Re: URIs: resources and contradictions was: Re: httpRange proposed text

On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 02:37:41PM -0500, Norman Walsh wrote:
> Ah, perhaps I get it after all:
> 
> You have a reasoning system that uses URIs as identifiers. Because
> that system is incapable of "knowing" anything about a URI other than
> the string of characters that comprise it, it is axiomatic that if two
> URIs are textually identical, they must mean the same thing.
> 
> I think I can understand that.
> 
> Is it widely accepted fact that this is a feature of all such
> reasoning systems? Perhaps it is, I don't know.

Whether or not it is a feature of any reasoning system, it is true of URIs
axiomatically. If some system decides that its going to come up with
some other definition of "sameness" (that might include things like network
cost, time of day, whether or not the user has blue hair and piercings, etc),
then _within_ that system it may choose to say that two URIs identify
different 'resources' but the definition of 'sameness' and 'resource' are
specific to that system only, not URIs as defined. 

So while it may or may not be the case that some reasoning system uses
this idea of semantically opaque and thus syntactic equivalence tested
identifiers, it is the case that, if one decides to use URIs for that
function, that the system inherits an identification system where 'sameness'
is defined that simply and it must deal with that very explicitly.

-MM

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Mealling	|      Vote Libertarian!       | urn:pin:1
michael@neonym.net      |                              | http://www.neonym.net

Received on Saturday, 3 August 2002 10:38:32 UTC