Re: In an RDBMS, what does "Data" mean?
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 00:32:13 +0200
Message-ID: <40aa8eef$0$560$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>
Karel Miklav wrote:
> mAsterdam wrote:
>> Anthony W. Youngman wrote: >>> x writes: >> ... >>>> Why you have not answered the question ? >> ... >>> And if we haven't got a philosophical definition, we can't compare >>> the philosophical and theoretical definitions, and therefore we >>> haven't got a clue as to whether either "the relational model mostly >>> works", or (and this is important) where its limitations are and >>> where it breaks down.
>
> It mostly works, but we have some clues where it breaks too: metadata,
> use patterns...
[snip]
>> The network roughly consists of: sign, media, shape and meaning. >> >> We have signs. They serve to communicate. >> Signs: A handshake, a hieroglyph, an ideogram (e.g. a chinese >> character), a sonogram (roman, arab character), a facial expression, >> a traffic light on red, an alarm - these are elementary, but >> I would also include: the collected works >> of <your favorite moviestar>
>
> I think our aim is to model reality and entertain users by creating nice
> illusions or giving them competitive advantage by reducing entropy in
> their work environment or by predicting the future.
The modeling of *what* of reality? Surely not all of it.
> There are many realities, but let me mention two; the reality of the
> current IT with implemented infrastructure and the worldview of a modern
> intellectual. Our interpretation of what's implemented in our (heads) is
> what we try to model in our toys. And by what we learnt this is nothing
> like mechanical wheels of a watch nor computer's random access memory
> and not even the relational database. The problem is in compressing the
> representation of data and easing the recall of that data.
Here you are speaking of data allready gathered, right?
> Here it
> becomes useful to know what data is, but for the current
> state of the art that has unfortunately already been settled.
Settled? I don't think the understanding of what we now call data we has grown beyond the metaphore level yet (unlike for instance our understanding of 'number' or 'motion').
>> In order to (just) exist all of these signs have media and shape, >> their pure existence does *not* require human (or just active) >> interpretation. Their function (purpose, ie >> communication), however *does* require some >> interpretation activity to assign meaning to them.
>
> That's what you think and if I'm ever your customer, you won't model it
> that way :) Seriously, I don't believe in _pure_ shits or that anything
> exists without being observed/interpreted, but I'll not go deeper as it
> may look like off-topic religion bashing.
Watch out, cats! :-)
>> This combination of sign and meaning we call data.
>
> I'd say fixation of this on a media is called data, couse otherwise you
> can't recall it later. And there is a very important thing that folks
> miss: if you vanish and nobody knows the way you fixed that data there's
> just (series of ones and zeros) without meaning. Thus a fixation can't
> be generally called data without known way to interpret it.
Although this suggests you have a way around Shroedingers cat whithout reverting to 'purity' or 'essence' etc... (and I don't) we do agree on that. Do you have an idea *why* folks miss this? Received on Wed May 19 2004 - 00:32:13 CEST