Re: Date's First Great Blunder

> >"If religion is a belief in what is unprovable, then the only religion
> >that can prove it is a religion is mathematics".
>
> This is a nonsense.

You also missed the point. You can't prove a system to be correct by using the system itself as a reference. You must use reality as a reference.

> >You state that relational database theory is a branch of mathematics. As
> >such, what evidence do you have that it actually WORKS! Because if it's
> >maths then the only proof you have is that it is *consistent*, and not
> >that it is actually relevant to the real world.
>
> To work and to be relevant to the real world are very different things.

Not always. Within certain scopes some maths match reality within an acceptable error. In other scopes, math still "works", but it begins to deviate more and more from reality. RDM's deviation from reality, under some scopes, is digital rather than analog. What exactly is RDM modelling in the real world when it incurrs NULLs?

> >"Relational theory is consistent. Academicians have an unfortunate
> >tendency to confuse consistency with truth".
>
> What is the difference in maths?

Math is made by humans to model reality. 1 + 1 = 2 not because it is mathematically correct, but because it models reality within a scope. Received on Tue Apr 20 2004 - 07:40:56 CEST