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.
