Re: Modeling question...

From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:11:39 GMT
Message-ID: <vxuNk.4580$fF3.1016_at_edtnps83>


David BL wrote:

> On Oct 24, 10:28 pm, paul c <toledobythe..._at_oohay.ac> wrote:

>> Walter Mitty wrote:
>>> "David BL" <davi..._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?
> 
> Would you say Max Tegmark is on the mystic slope?
> 
> http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0704/0704.0646v2.pdf


No idea at the moment, I'm still trying to figure out what that C++ structure has to do with declarative programming! Received on Tue Oct 28 2008 - 03:11:39 CET

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