Re: Ping: dawn, some mvl questions

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 22:30:53 GMT
Message-ID: <xS5cg.10848$A26.266509@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

Keith H Duggar wrote:

> dawn wrote:
>

>>Not only that, but it is impossible to enumerate a set
>>without the representation being a list.

>
> Is this a confusion between logical and physical again?
> Regardless this also an example of begging the question
> or a circular argument.

It's not only confused. It's ridiculously stupid as if one could never enumerate a set by oberving a venn diagram, for instance.

>>We write in lists, we speak in lists, and we are sometimes
>>unaware of the meaning we give to a set when we list it.
>>Does a grocery list refer to a set or would you lose
>>something if you treated it that way?

What stupid nonsense! Do you really have to repeat this shit even in an excerpt?

First, it's not like humans communicate all that well. Second, it's not like we don't write in sets, streams, sand, and snow too. That doesn't automatically make any of those things suitable for data management. Sets and predicate logic are suitable as has been very well proved.

The order of the average grocery list combines when somebody noticed the item stock was low or where someone found additional room. In other words, the order conveys no useful meaning whatsoever.

>>Retaining the order of something represented as a list
>>might just provide ongoing information never verbalized.
>>If a user lists something in an order, but we have defined
>>it as a set because there has been no overt statement of
>>the meaning of the order, might be losing information?
>>Cheers!  --dawn

Again, what stupid nonsense! The whole point of the information principle is to avoid implicit information because humans have very poor skills for separating implicit information from useless noise -- as Dawn herself so clearly demonstrates ever time she posts.

If order is important, use explicit values to communicate and manipulate that order. Duh!

> If my grandmother hands me a recipe written on a piece of
> paper and I type it into emacs to store as a text file, do I
> lose information? What if some of the instructions were
> written heavily or traced over many times (ie bold) do I
> lose information if I use a plain text file? What if I sort
> the ingredients by quantity when she did alphabetically?
>
> Of course no two physical representations (in the example
> text file versus paper) EVER retain exactly the same
> information since there is an vast amount of information
> held in any physical system (most of it unknown in fact)
> that is unique.
>
> This is why it is so important to define logical (not
> physical!) models of data. Because we are free to define the
> logical model as we see fit and abstract away physical
> details that we deem insignificant. The word deem is key
> here. It is a choice. Our model is a choice. As long as we
> agree on the logical data model then we are fully capable of
> communicating information without loss.
>
> Perhaps my grandmother assumed I would recognize the heavily
> traced ingredients as important and the others optional.
> Perhaps I just thought she was doodling. Regardless the flaw
> is not the logical data model it is her and my failure to
> AGREE on a COMMON data model. The flaw is in
>
>

>>no overt statement of the meaning of the order

>
>
> and
>
>

>>information never verbalized

>
>
> (though "verbalized" seems a poor choice of words perhaps
> for "modeled" or "represented"?)
>
> If you want to use a logical data model that assumes some
> built-in implicit (physical?) order is meaningful nothing is
> stopping you. Though it is certainly not necessary to do so
> (the RM for example) and many have argued quite reasonably
> that such order dependence is a bad idea.
>
> Next time I will have my grandmother handwrite her recipe in
> XML (blah! not! :)

Exactly! Received on Sun May 21 2006 - 17:30:53 CDT