Re: Impossible Database Design?
Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 23:15:03 GMT
Message-ID: <XpNbg.10431$A26.256704_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>
Marshall wrote:
> -CELKO- wrote:
>
>>>>Well, yes. As far as as I understand it, they (DD&L) discuss a discrete (vs continuus) universe representation - at least as far as time is concerned. Why the 'but'? << >> >>I cannot shake Zeno's paradoxes which occur with a discrete model of >>time.
>
> Regardless, a discrete representation is the only kind of
> representation
> possible with digital computers. You play the cards you're dealt.
Marshall, if you are going to interact with the self-aggrandizing ignorants please take the time to call them on their bullshit. Joe is the worst of the lot.
He doesn't have a clue about Zeno, and it is in fact the assumption of a continuum that is at the heart of the paradox. Because if time and distance are discrete, eventually the distance between Achilles and the Tortoise will be less than the minimum discrete distance.
Similarly with the dichotomy, if time and space are discrete, eventually the amount one must move to start will be less than the minimum discrete distance.
Others of Zeno's paradoxes simply prove their axioms etc.
Joe mentioned Zeno to make his ignorant ass look smart, when nothing could possibly be farther from the truth. When you accept his horseshit at face value, you are in effect telling others you think the self-aggrandizing ignorant has something resembling a valid point. That is how the stupid and the ignorant gain respect in an industry that should reject them outright.
> For myself, I would really like it if an exact representation of pi
> was possible. But outside of a computer algebra system, it isn't.
>
>>>>I'm not sure if I am getting this the way you mean it. You mean p1, p2 etc. as time points? << >> >>NO, P# as part numbers! He uses the [<start> : <terminal>] notation >>for anything. >> >> >>>>During Birds [p1:p5] pink lawn flamingoes << >> >>Exactly! See what I mean about how it does not make sense! Then they >>have PACK() and UNPACK(), etc.
>
> If you have a finite domain, you can put the elements in order. The
> order
> can exist and be well-defined, independent of whether it "makes sense."
If intervals don't make sense for a type, don't define a less than or greater than operator for the type. Just define equality. No partial order, no total order, no interval type.
If the type has a total order, it makes sense to have intervals of the type.
> I haven't read the DD&L temporal book; I neither support nor
> refute anything in it. However, I don't see how there can be
> any complaint on the basis of using a discrete representation of
> time, any more than one can complain about floating point numbers.
> Which is to say: maybe a little; it's not perfect. But not much, since
> it's not possible to do any better.
I don't think anyone has established that continuous is better or even necessarily valid. A continuum does not help at all with intervals on the "third thursday of the month" type. Received on Sun May 21 2006 - 01:15:03 CEST