Re: Using the RM for ADTs

"none (Reinier Post)" <rp_at_raampje.> wrote in message news:4a5badd3$0$8677$703f8584_at_news.kpn.nl...
> Brian Selzer wrote:
>
>>It's not a question of philosophy. Identity and identification are
>>completely different concepts. In particular, identity involves all
>>properties while identification involves just those properties that serve
>>to
>>distinguish one object from another. There can be many sets of properties
>>that identify something at any given time, but only something that has all
>>the same properties at all times can be considered identical.
>
> It's only completely different if you postulate an absolute object
> universe in which every object absolutely exists. You have not
> demonstrate the need for this postulate. Just considering identity
> and identifiability to be the same thing, namely, a property of terms
> used in a given a conceptual model, makes a lot more sense to me.
> The difference you refer to just the difference between identity in
> two conceptual models to me. Except that according to you, one is
> The Absolute Object Model, which will always remain elusive
> (we'll never agree on all the details).

I think we have our wires crossed here. I don't postulate an absolute object universe in which every object absolutely exists. I postulate a fixed universe that contains everything that CAN be discussed. For a fixed domain, individual quantifiers range over everything that can possibly be, not just everything that actually is. Existence--that is, actual existence--is a property that everything that has become actual but hasn't yet become history has.

>
> Of course our conceptual models do have a correspondence with reality,
> but I don't think it's best expressed in terms of Absolute Real Objects.
>
>>> The closest I get to ontology is entity-relationship modeling.
>>
>>What does ontology to do with identity and identification? Or taking
>>things
>>out of context?
>
> E/R expresses identity ('identifiability' if you prefer) explicitly.
>
>>[...] I have read numerous academic papers that at least in part support
>>the
>>positions I take, and I have in the past cited some of them here, so I
>>don't
>>consider myself out of step.
>
> I think you're correct. E.g. the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
> (which I haven't read, but I browsed it for this discussion)
> seems to agree with you both in viewpoint and in terminology.
> It particular it uses the term 'object' in the same way,
> as far as I can see.
>
> --
> Reinier
Received on Tue Jul 14 2009 - 03:42:22 CEST