RE: new text for Information Resource (section 3.1)

I suspect that your definition of "state" is not quite the same as mine.

If I choose to denote the actual coffee-maker with a URI, and provide
a representation that reflects the "state" of the coffee-maker as
"on", then I think that's just fine.

Patrick




> -----Original Message-----
> From: sandro@roke.hawke.org [mailto:sandro@roke.hawke.org]On Behalf Of
> ext Sandro Hawke
> Sent: 09 September, 2004 15:16
> To: Stickler Patrick (Nokia-TP-MSW/Tampere)
> Cc: www-tag@w3.org
> Subject: Re: new text for Information Resource (section 3.1) 
> 
> 
> 
> [moved to www-tag from public-webarch-comments]
> 
> > A representation reflects the state of a resource. I see no 
> reason why
> > a URI can't denote the actual coffee-maker (not its 
> counters, timers, etc.)
> > and have that URI resolve to a representation of the 
> coffee-maker, reflecting
> > its state (its counters, timers, etc.)
> 
> As I understand physics (at about the 2nd year level), the actual
> coffee-maker is made up of atoms, and we cannot encode the state of
> even a single atom in a finite sequence of octets.  In classical
> physics, the state would have to be encoded in real numbers, which are
> often infinite.  In quantum mechanics, the state is also unknowable --
> it's theoretically impossible to measure the state beyond a certain
> precision.
> 
> What you are talking about encoding is the state of some abstract
> model of the coffee maker, and I'm fine with that -- but then your URI
> is for an abstract model -- a kind of conceptual entity, not a
> physical object.  Maybe I could clarify my text to say how such
> conceptual models are information.
> 
> Arguably, my notion of the coffee-maker is also an abstract model, but
> that doesn't weaken my argument.  I do not believe you can build wide
> consensus on an approach to modelling physical objects in which their
> state can be encoded in a finite sequence of octets.
> 
>      -- sandro
> 
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 9 September 2004 12:37:36 UTC