On 4/7/17 20:39, Paul Hoffman wrote:
(I'm surprised our philosophy-minded folks didn't answer this. I'll
take a stab, acknowledging that I'm only a philosophy tourist.)
On 30 Mar 2017, at 13:41, Andrew McConachie wrote:
If a domain name is made up of labels, and labels are made up of
octets, then can there be non-digital representations of domain names?
Yes. The octets in the labels can be encoded into writing systems, and
there can be a commonly-recognized display format for the
representation of a group of labels.
For example, if I spray paint 'www.example' on the side of a bus, is
it not a domain name because it is made up of paint instead of octets?
It is a rendering (in paint, on a bus) a domain name in a
commonly-accepted display format. Neither the paint nor the bus is the
domain name.
Some history related to representation versus essence:
https://essenceofbuddhism.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/what-the-finger-pointing-to-the-moon-analogy-really-means-from-zen-buddhism-the-buddha-in-the-shurangama-sutra/
/Ceci n'est pas une pipe./
If I understand correctly this definition of domain name incorporates
actual pipes and explicitly not paintings of pipes. Since the draft says
a domain name is essentially octets, and only octets, any representation
of domain names not composed of octets is just a representation, not an
actual domain name.
I don't believe that's how the term is used in common parlance, but I
can see how that definition works for this document. Thanks for the
clarification!
--Andrew
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