[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: more politics
[Tim Bray] >A resource is identified by URI and may emit representations. There's no way >to tell from the representations what the resource "is"; I tend to believe a >resource is what its publisher says it is as a good rule of thumb. This smacks of the sense-thesis/reference-thesis corner of metaphysics. I melted part of my brain recently with Saul Kripke's book "Naming and Necessity"[1]. The whole discussion in the book about names as rigid designators left me musing that (a) URIs are inherently unknowable beyond their proper names (b) all we can ever have to work with are representations and (c) none of those representations can be relied upon in all possible worlds, therefore I'm with Tim on this one :-) >But it doesn't affect the software very much. Thankfully! I remember reading that Murray Gell-Mann carried (carries?) around a doctor's note forbidding him to get into debates on metaphysics. Exploring the particle physics of the Web can gets into similar territory. regards, Sean [1] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674598466/102-0817413-9832960?v=glance http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com
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