Kingsley and John B, (01)
JFS
>> But there have been some people who claimed that you need a distinct
>> URI for every sense of every word. (02)
KI
> All we can do is provide unique identifiers that denote entities
> in a given world view (or situation)...
> Basically, as our world view expands we discover new insights etc. (03)
Yes. The world is a continuum. We can name some discrete points, but
we can't describe a continuum with any set of discrete identifiers.
Some insights can be described in words, but there are too many
subtle variations -- uncountably many. (04)
JFS
>> Mathematicians can still read any equation over the phone to another
>> mathematician as a sentence in whatever NL they share. (05)
JB
> Not just mathematicians, this is true in every profession. I am not
> sure how to prove that... (06)
There is no proof, but there is a simple explanation. In every field,
the practitioners name the things and methods they use and produce.
The novices learn and use the same words and syntax. (07)
JB
> Two professionals discussing their fields seem to do just fine while
> waiting in an airport lounge. Sure, one of them may say, "you'll need
> to draw me a picture". That seems to be a call to use a shorthand
> notation in the interests of time. (08)
Symbols like '+' are abbreviations for the words or phrases. Some
diagrams are designed to be translated to and from discrete symbols.
But no words can describe a complex image -- such as a human face. (09)
JB
> Given enough time we humans can and must be able to conjure up an
> appropriate image to get an idea across if both are professionals
> in the same discipline. (010)
There's a big difference between "conjuring up" and specifying. (011)
Just consider any profession from cooking to music to nuclear physics.
Two cooks can follow the same recipe and get wildly different results.
Jascha Heifetz and the kid next door can play the same notes, but
there's a world of difference in the results. (012)
In physics, experimenters have to deal with the full continuum of
pesky details that theoreticians ignore. George Gamow told the
following anecdote about Wolfgang Pauli: (013)
> Pauli was such a good theoretical physicist that something usually
> broke in the lab whenever he merely stepped across the threshold.
> A mysterious event that did not seem at first to be connected with
> Pauli presence once occurred in Professor Franck's laboratory in
> Göttingen.
>
> Early one afternoon, without apparent cause, a complicated apparatus
> for the study of atomic phenomena collapsed. Franck wrote humorously
> about this to Pauli at his Zurich address and, after some delay,
> received an answer in an envelope with a Danish stamp. Pauli wrote
> that he had gone to visit Niels Bohr, and at the time of the mishap
> in Franck's laboratory his train was stopped for a few minutes at
> the Göttingen railroad station. (014)
Source: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-12648047.html (015)
John (016)
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