Path: news.easynews.com!core-easynews!newsfeed1.easynews.com!easynews.com!easynews!cyclone1.gnilink.net!wn14feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.204!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!sccrnsc03.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Marshall Spight" Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory References: <17ce58cf.0304240518.34ebfe22@posting.google.com> <4b45d3ad.0305011433.5ae8baa4@posting.google.com> <3EB1AA25.50307@atbusiness.com> <4b45d3ad.0305021332.436c1d36@posting.google.com> <4b45d3ad.0305021832.111fbebd@posting.google.com> <3EB34CD7.8010502@atbusiness.com> <4b45d3ad.0305030905.2e8c66f5@posting.google.com> <4b45d3ad.0305041522.1cc70a75@posting.google.com> Subject: Re: Do Data Models Need to built on a Mathematical Concept? Lines: 40 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.236.48.146 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc03 1052095403 12.236.48.146 (Mon, 05 May 2003 00:43:23 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 00:43:23 GMT Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 00:43:23 GMT Xref: core-easynews comp.databases.theory:26159 X-Received-Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 17:44:55 MST (news.easynews.com) "Neo" wrote in message news:4b45d3ad.0305041522.1cc70a75@posting.google.com... > > Can you give me an example of what this would be used for? > > I believe I can explain the problem in a general manner which relates > to the capabilities exhibited by the human brain. Okay, I read your post, and I believe I understood you, although I don't particularly know what it means to "relate to the capabilities exhibited by the human brain." The thing is, you gave me a good explanation, but you didn't give me an example. I'll pull one specific phrase out of your explanation that I had trouble with: > Suppose I want to be able to relate any two things Well, I just don't see this happening. When do you *ever* need to be able to do that? To take an earlier example you gave: "persons, airplanes, colors, jobs, chairs, etc." There are many pairs here that don't make any sense. For example, what color is this job? How many persons does this chair have? If you simple say "there is some association between these two things" then you haven't said anything at all yet. You have to say what the semantics of the pairing are. You have to say what it *means* for the two things to be paired. You need a specific predicate. If I just say (person, job) that might seems like it intrinsically means something, *but it doesn't.* It could mean what job the person holds. It could mean what job the person doesn't want. It could mean what person the job is named after (like a named chair at a university.) (There's that chair again!) Marshall