Re: Modeling question...
From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:28:18 GMT
Message-ID: <S3kMk.3607$%%2.156_at_edtnps82>
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> I don't understand the word "naturally" in this context. Isn't all modeling
> artificial, rather than natural?
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I'm with you even though we think of the activities involved as being natural to us. The RM is an artifice, so are models in general. So is FOL (even with its trap lingo like "Exists"). I doubt if mathematics is any more natural than a data model as it produces some conclusions that nobody can actually visualize. The consequences of relational closure are one small example. The reason I think this is important is that it means there ought to be nothing to prevent us devising even more useful artifices, even if most of us, including me, don't possess the insight to do that.
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:28:18 GMT
Message-ID: <S3kMk.3607$%%2.156_at_edtnps82>
Walter Mitty wrote:
> "David BL" <davidbl_at_iinet.net.au> wrote in message
> news:de0dc1e9-1953-49d9-ae84-00cab59d1195_at_z6g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
>> Ok, I’ll bite…
>
>> No doubt any data can be made to “fit” into the relational model. >> The more important question is whether it happens /naturally/. The
>
> I don't understand the word "naturally" in this context. Isn't all modeling
> artificial, rather than natural?
>
>
>
I'm with you even though we think of the activities involved as being natural to us. The RM is an artifice, so are models in general. So is FOL (even with its trap lingo like "Exists"). I doubt if mathematics is any more natural than a data model as it produces some conclusions that nobody can actually visualize. The consequences of relational closure are one small example. The reason I think this is important is that it means there ought to be nothing to prevent us devising even more useful artifices, even if most of us, including me, don't possess the insight to do that.
Being part of nature, we are hardly in a position to duplicate it. Our only advantage is the artifice wherein we can drop the natural aspects that are inconvenient or irrelevant, as we see it, to some purpose. We've been practising this since the Stone Age.
It bugs me when people pretend that we have re-produced anything but our own mental creations, I think that is the first step down the mystic slope. But reason and rationality too can get out of control, as modern history shows. Does that sound odd coming from an atheist? Received on Fri Oct 24 2008 - 15:28:18 CEST