Re: NULLs: theoretical problems?
Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:10:19 -0300
Message-ID: <46ba4d24$0$4032$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>
Marshall wrote:
> On Aug 8, 1:20 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>Jan Hidders wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>>>How
>>>>>>exactly does that differ from scriptural interpretation and theories
>>>>>>thereof?
>>
>>>>>Exactly! Rejecting straight away null values in any form or shape
>>>>>without any sort of investigation of their properties would have been
>>>>>much more scientific. :-)
>>
>>>>That doesn't answer the question. How does it differ from scriptural
>>>>interpretation and theories thereof?
>>
>>>What makes you think they have anything in common?
>>
>>Each relates to interpretation and to an abstract entity taken as a given.
>
>
> If I may jump in, I see a clear distinction. Where the domain is
> abstraction
> itself, as is the case in mathematics or database theory or whatever,
> it is perfectly reasonable to just make stuff up and see how it
> behaves.
> If we get a useful formalism out of it, great; if not, we haven't
> lost anything except the time spent on the investigation.
>
> On the other hand, if we are discussing scriptural interpretation,
> then those engaged in the process do *not* consider the domain
> abstraction. Believers in deity x do not consider it an *abstraction*;
> rather it is an attempt to explain the natural world. If they didn't
> consider it "real" then they wouldn't be believers, would they?
>
> Concepts such as natural numbers or relations or functions
> do not exist in the same way that rocks and birds exist.
> NULL "exists" in exactly the same way that 5 exists; the
> only distinctions to be made between abstractions is in
> their behavior and our judgment of their usefulness. I say
> this even though I have a very low opinion of NULL.
>
> Even the most solid and established database theory or
> math is a purely human construct, and is generally understood
> to be so by theoreticians in the field. I will not address the
> question of what scripture *actually* is, but I will claim
> that it is not understood to be a purely human construct
> by its adherents.
>
> Marshall
I suggest that 5 represents a concrete concept. We spend much of our primary school years internalizing that concept and similar concepts. We understand the fiveness of the points of a star on the American flag versus the sixness of the points of a Star of David.