Re: Mixing OO and DB

From: David BL <davidbl_at_iinet.net.au>
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:44:22 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <98411b96-9fcb-4654-a295-3e915a4ca8e8_at_e6g2000prf.googlegroups.com>


On Feb 11, 8:07 pm, JOG <j..._at_cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2:05 am, David BL <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> > On Feb 11, 3:29 am, JOG <j..._at_cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > > On Feb 10, 5:45 pm, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail..._at_dmitry-kazakov.de>
> > > wrote:
> > > > [What is data, in your opinion?
>
> > > Data. Lots of datum - from latin, meaning statement of fact. Predicate
> > > and value in FOL. A value without description is of course just
> > > noise.
>
> > Latin datum is past participle of dare, "to give". What make you say
> > data is necessarily a set of propositions?
>
> The OED. "Facts, esp. numerical facts, collected together for
> reference or information." The etymology stems from 'dare', because
> facts are always communicated or "given". I understand of course that
> the term is thrown around wantonly and ambiguosly nowadays, but as
> data theorists, we shouldn't be party to that imo ;)

> > Are you suggesting a value
> > is meaningless without a proposition? Why can't a datum just be a
> > value?
>
> Because ta value has to be associated with something. Hofstadter gave
> a good example of this with the groove modulations on a vinyl record.
> To us they are (musical) data, to an alien not knowing their context,
> it is not. You need the context.
>
> > Wouldn't you say a recorded image is data?
>
> Of course, so long as I know it's an image. If its just ones and
> zero's stored in a computer, without anyway of telling they represent
> a picture, then it is simply noise.

Let's indeed assume we know how to interpret the 1's and 0's as an image. So what have we got? Nothing but a *value*. We can display it. We can comment on whether we like it - even if we haven't a clue where it came from. But I don't see any sense in which the image value gives us any statements of fact beyond the specification of a value. A value simply "is".

I would suggest that a lot of the data in the world is characterised more closely as "interesting values" than collections of propositions. For example a recorded poem is an interesting value. So also a movie, mp3, book, web page or source code listing. Received on Mon Feb 11 2008 - 13:44:22 CET

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