Re: RM formalism supporting partial information

On Nov 15, 2:20 pm, paul c <toledobythe..._at_ooyah.ac> wrote:
> David BL wrote:
> > On Nov 15, 10:01 am, Marshall <marshall.spi..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Nov 14, 2:21 pm, David BL <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> >>> On Nov 15, 1:20 am, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >>>> paul c wrote:
> >>>>> David BL wrote:
> >>>>> ...
> >>>>>>http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~davidbl/MVattributes.doc
> >>>>>> This is still a work in progress.
> >>>>>> I welcome any comments.
> >>>> By the second paragraph, the document entered into the realm of
> >>>> nonsense, and I stopped reading.
> >>> An attribute has a name and a domain. How is that nonsense?
> >> You didn't say an attribute *has* a name and a domain. You said
> >> an attribute *is* a name and a domain. So you can have two
> >> different attributes with the same name.
>
> > I said an attribute *consists* of a name and a domain. That is
> > compatible with saying an attribute has (and only has) a name and a
> > domain. I assume you're not making some philosophical point about
> > the sum being greater than the parts; IMO distinguishing between
> > "has" and "is" is splitting hairs. In natural language at that!
> > ...
>
> I think un-formal words like "consists" hold just as many dangers as
> words like "has" and "is", those two being know to have caused all kinds
> of controversy. I say keep it formal, less chance of vague imagination
> taking hold. Imagination should be reserved to the thought behind the
> words, if you ask me.

Agreed. The words were only meant as an explanatory comment to help the reader. Didn't seem to work though!

There is nothing missing in the formal exposition. I side stepped the need for a pair construct to define an attribute by using a functional formalism (ie N() and D() functions) to define the composite mathematical structure. You may notice that I included a definition of equality of attributes. In a way this is more formal than an explicit syntax for composite mathematical structures (which makes the meaning of equality implicit).

The functional notation is convenient. I think the exposition would be more verbose with special syntax for the composite mathematical structures. Received on Thu Nov 15 2007 - 06:59:26 CET