in my mental world, there is a "pure human", and a 4 armed human would probably be a 95% human or something, just like a hobbit would be. the other way round, a human would be a "95% hobbit". an elephant would be 4% hobbit on that scale. this model is flexible, covers everything, and is not really helpful when you ask "what is it?" you have to ask "is this at least 90% cat?"
2013/12/20 Phillip Lord <phillip.l...@newcastle.ac.uk> > zcaudate <z...@caudate.me> writes: > > @philip lord. > > > > Where would mutant elephants and the elephant god Ganesha fit in that > classification? > > > It might surprise you to know that there is actually quite a lot work on > both of these. > > The problem with mutant elephants generalises into the problem with > abnormalities; for example, if I build a model of a human which says, > "humans have two hands, and two legs" then there are plenty of counter > examples, having more or less than two hands (mostly less). If, on the > other hand, you have a model which can cope with these exceptions, then > it gets too complex to handle, and you can rarely conclude anything > useful. > > Ganesha causes a different problem: that is does he exist at all, and if > he does, is he an elephant. Now there are those who say no he isn't, so > he shouldn't be in the model. And, there are those (like me) who say, > well it depends on your application and what you are trying to achieve. > > Farcical as all of this sounds, it does actually have implications for > the way that we build data models, particularly for biology and > medicine. If you are interested, you can read my paper on the subject > here: > > http://www.russet.org.uk/blog/1713 > > And a companion article by my co-author. It's about unicorns, but most > of it probably covers Ganesha also. > > http://robertdavidstevens.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/unicorns-in-my-ontology/ > > Phil > > -- > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with > your first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Clojure" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
