Codd 1970 'domain' does not mean Date 2016 'type' [was: burble about Date's IM]

#121 · November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

Quote from dandl on November 17, 2019, 12:47 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 16, 2019, 12:34 pm

Quote from dandl on November 16, 2019, 12:20 pm

In the scientific community, it's generally -- but perhaps not universally -- accepted that time started when the universe came into being, not the other way around. Whether you believe in a "big bang" or not, it's evident that time requires (at least) one universe in order to exist.

I don't 'believe' in anything much. I leave that to the religions.

Anything you hold to be true is a belief. That's what "belief" means.

No, mostly it doesn't. Unfortunately this simple word has a lot of shades of meaning, but mostly it's taken to refer to an attitude or opinion to something said or written by someone. I found lots of definitions, but this is as good as any:

(Merriam Webster) Belief: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing.

So I am careful to say that I don't 'believe' that 2+2=4. I hold it to be a true and correct consequence of the application of the laws of mathematics, but it is not a 'belief'. You are welcome to use the word in other senses of meaning, but that's how I use it.

So very little of what I know about the real physical world is a belief. Each is either a fact (an observation) or the consequence of applying logic (based on theory or model) to facts, and is innately true or false or uncertain. I may place trust and confidence in various parts of that process (people gathering facts, drawing conclusions), but often these will be in conflict. I don't 'believe' unless I'm forced to make a choice in order to take some action.

A "fact" is a belief with (typically corroborated and agreed) evidence. Are there things you hold to be facts?

It's not that simple. A scientific fact is an observation, a datum. A legal fact is one established by a court. Every document or artefact is a fact, even if what it says is false. A historic fact is just a story made to match some other fact. In ordinary usage a fact is something held to be true based on some kind of connection with reality, as against a theory or speculation. But if someone says "That's a fact" they just mean that it's true, not that it's a fact.

A good general use of 'fact' is to identify consensus knowledge, as the basis for debate or action. Such facts need not be true, but they must be agreed to have any value.

Facts are even messier than beliefs, but a proper use of fact should never confuse it with belief.

If so, they are the things you believe.

Not at all. I have here a business card for a person I know. The card is a fact, and it contains various pieces of information such as his phone number, which is another fact. I accept this as provisionally true because this my best available evidence, and I will use this phone number if I need to call him. But the card is quite old and the number may be wrong. I have no basis for a belief, I simply have a practical basis for dealing with world.

As interesting as debates about the finer points of English semantics may be, I'm afraid we're going to wind up going in circles over something that really doesn't matter -- at least, not to successfully discuss topics that matter on this forum.

Big Bang is a good theory, but it relies on some rather extreme assumptions and has a number of awkward loose ends. It also violates a principle of symmetry, in that it requires that the universe look different now as against in the past or future. So I remain sceptical, and hopeful.

Hoyle et al.'s steady-state model has largely been discredited. It appears the universe did look different in the past and will probably look different in the future.

This is a reasonable conjecture based on available evidence (facts) and prevailing theory (models and logic). On balance for now my expectation is that this theory will be supplanted by one that is more 'universal', but almost certainly not Hoyle. I am deeply troubled by a number of aspects of the model, and with physics itself, particular as it deals with time. Fortunately there is nothing on which I need to take action, so it remains idle speculation. I don't have to 'believe' anything.

Just as an aside, if you accept BB, try using it to calculate the current size of the Universe. Hint: bigger than 14K LY. Does that make any kind of sense?

It's not my area (pun intended), but having superficially read (sometimes superficial) explanations for this, they make sense to me.

Note that I treat amateur criticisms of cosmology, physics, etc., with great suspicion, as they're almost invariably based on whim, conjecture and misunderstanding, along with a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning.

I accept the Universe of Discourse as a convenient convention: the complete range of objects, events, attributes, relations, ideas, etc, that are expressed, assumed, or implied in a discussion. I accept the idea of the Physical Universe, and the idea of Time. I do not accept the particular relationship you construct between them, or the logical conclusion you draw. It just ain't that simple!

Indeed. Conflation of philosophy with database theory is unhelpful. Relational database theory is a self-standing theory based on set theory and first-order predicate logic. Philosophy may provide useful applications of relational theory, but doesn't need to be included within relational theory.

Wrong way around: relational theory is a useful branch of logic, one of many topics addressed by philosophy. Philosophy does not concern itself much with the practical applications of a theory.

Logic isn't philosophical, though formal logic is used by certain branches of philosophy.

Really? wiki.

Really. It confirms my point that logic doesn't belong to philosophy, but is mainly a tool used by it. If logic inspires branches of philosophy, that's great, but logic is certainly not beholden unto philosophy. We don't need advice from philosophers to effectively use the relational model.

What Brian appeared to be suggesting is that the relational model needs to take into account a philosophical interpretation of logic.

It doesn't.

Agreed.

In other words, if you wish to record data about things that have an existence in time vs concepts that do not, then a relational database will almost certainly be appropriate and you don't need to alter relational database theory to do so.

Not sure what to make of that. A relational database seems to be a good fit for data that fits the basic model of fixed attributes, known quantities and regular recurrence. It seems a less good fit for data that is qualitative, irregular and uncertain. I can't see that time is an important distinguishing feature.

The temporal database folks seem to think time is an important distinguishing feature, but they achieve that by building on the relational model rather than changing it.

My point is that the relational model -- as is -- is a good fit for record keeping. It is a model for data. Strange debates¹ seem to result when (what appear to be) attempts are made to use it to model some aspect of reality (or fictionality resembling reality), rather than data about (perceived or intentionally fictional) reality.

Agreed. Although with that proviso: there are kinds of record keeping for which the relational model is a less good fit than others.

Be that as it may, I haven't seen mention of any here that compelled alteration to -- or outright rejection of -- any relational model.

Quote from dandl on November 17, 2019, 12:47 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 16, 2019, 12:34 pm

Quote from dandl on November 16, 2019, 12:20 pm

In the scientific community, it's generally -- but perhaps not universally -- accepted that time started when the universe came into being, not the other way around. Whether you believe in a "big bang" or not, it's evident that time requires (at least) one universe in order to exist.

I don't 'believe' in anything much. I leave that to the religions.

Anything you hold to be true is a belief. That's what "belief" means.

No, mostly it doesn't. Unfortunately this simple word has a lot of shades of meaning, but mostly it's taken to refer to an attitude or opinion to something said or written by someone. I found lots of definitions, but this is as good as any:

(Merriam Webster) Belief: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing.

So I am careful to say that I don't 'believe' that 2+2=4. I hold it to be a true and correct consequence of the application of the laws of mathematics, but it is not a 'belief'. You are welcome to use the word in other senses of meaning, but that's how I use it.

So very little of what I know about the real physical world is a belief. Each is either a fact (an observation) or the consequence of applying logic (based on theory or model) to facts, and is innately true or false or uncertain. I may place trust and confidence in various parts of that process (people gathering facts, drawing conclusions), but often these will be in conflict. I don't 'believe' unless I'm forced to make a choice in order to take some action.

A "fact" is a belief with (typically corroborated and agreed) evidence. Are there things you hold to be facts?

It's not that simple. A scientific fact is an observation, a datum. A legal fact is one established by a court. Every document or artefact is a fact, even if what it says is false. A historic fact is just a story made to match some other fact. In ordinary usage a fact is something held to be true based on some kind of connection with reality, as against a theory or speculation. But if someone says "That's a fact" they just mean that it's true, not that it's a fact.

A good general use of 'fact' is to identify consensus knowledge, as the basis for debate or action. Such facts need not be true, but they must be agreed to have any value.

Facts are even messier than beliefs, but a proper use of fact should never confuse it with belief.

If so, they are the things you believe.

Not at all. I have here a business card for a person I know. The card is a fact, and it contains various pieces of information such as his phone number, which is another fact. I accept this as provisionally true because this my best available evidence, and I will use this phone number if I need to call him. But the card is quite old and the number may be wrong. I have no basis for a belief, I simply have a practical basis for dealing with world.

As interesting as debates about the finer points of English semantics may be, I'm afraid we're going to wind up going in circles over something that really doesn't matter -- at least, not to successfully discuss topics that matter on this forum.

Big Bang is a good theory, but it relies on some rather extreme assumptions and has a number of awkward loose ends. It also violates a principle of symmetry, in that it requires that the universe look different now as against in the past or future. So I remain sceptical, and hopeful.

Hoyle et al.'s steady-state model has largely been discredited. It appears the universe did look different in the past and will probably look different in the future.

This is a reasonable conjecture based on available evidence (facts) and prevailing theory (models and logic). On balance for now my expectation is that this theory will be supplanted by one that is more 'universal', but almost certainly not Hoyle. I am deeply troubled by a number of aspects of the model, and with physics itself, particular as it deals with time. Fortunately there is nothing on which I need to take action, so it remains idle speculation. I don't have to 'believe' anything.

Just as an aside, if you accept BB, try using it to calculate the current size of the Universe. Hint: bigger than 14K LY. Does that make any kind of sense?

It's not my area (pun intended), but having superficially read (sometimes superficial) explanations for this, they make sense to me.

Note that I treat amateur criticisms of cosmology, physics, etc., with great suspicion, as they're almost invariably based on whim, conjecture and misunderstanding, along with a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning.

I accept the Universe of Discourse as a convenient convention: the complete range of objects, events, attributes, relations, ideas, etc, that are expressed, assumed, or implied in a discussion. I accept the idea of the Physical Universe, and the idea of Time. I do not accept the particular relationship you construct between them, or the logical conclusion you draw. It just ain't that simple!

Indeed. Conflation of philosophy with database theory is unhelpful. Relational database theory is a self-standing theory based on set theory and first-order predicate logic. Philosophy may provide useful applications of relational theory, but doesn't need to be included within relational theory.

Wrong way around: relational theory is a useful branch of logic, one of many topics addressed by philosophy. Philosophy does not concern itself much with the practical applications of a theory.

Logic isn't philosophical, though formal logic is used by certain branches of philosophy.

Really? wiki.

Really. It confirms my point that logic doesn't belong to philosophy, but is mainly a tool used by it. If logic inspires branches of philosophy, that's great, but logic is certainly not beholden unto philosophy. We don't need advice from philosophers to effectively use the relational model.

What Brian appeared to be suggesting is that the relational model needs to take into account a philosophical interpretation of logic.

It doesn't.

Agreed.

In other words, if you wish to record data about things that have an existence in time vs concepts that do not, then a relational database will almost certainly be appropriate and you don't need to alter relational database theory to do so.

Not sure what to make of that. A relational database seems to be a good fit for data that fits the basic model of fixed attributes, known quantities and regular recurrence. It seems a less good fit for data that is qualitative, irregular and uncertain. I can't see that time is an important distinguishing feature.

The temporal database folks seem to think time is an important distinguishing feature, but they achieve that by building on the relational model rather than changing it.

My point is that the relational model -- as is -- is a good fit for record keeping. It is a model for data. Strange debates¹ seem to result when (what appear to be) attempts are made to use it to model some aspect of reality (or fictionality resembling reality), rather than data about (perceived or intentionally fictional) reality.

Agreed. Although with that proviso: there are kinds of record keeping for which the relational model is a less good fit than others.

Be that as it may, I haven't seen mention of any here that compelled alteration to -- or outright rejection of -- any relational model.

I'm the forum administrator and lead developer of Rel. Email me at dave@armchair.mb.ca with the Subject 'TTM Forum'. Download Rel from https://reldb.org

#122 · November 17, 2019, 10:20 am

Quote from AntC on November 17, 2019, 10:20 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

Quote from dandl on November 17, 2019, 12:47 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 16, 2019, 12:34 pm

Quote from dandl on November 16, 2019, 12:20 pm

Note that I treat amateur criticisms of cosmology, physics, etc., with great suspicion, as they're almost invariably based on whim, conjecture and misunderstanding, along with a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning.

I accept the Universe of Discourse as a convenient convention: the complete range of objects, events, attributes, relations, ideas, etc, that are expressed, assumed, or implied in a discussion. I accept the idea of the Physical Universe, and the idea of Time. I do not accept the particular relationship you construct between them, or the logical conclusion you draw. It just ain't that simple!

Indeed. Conflation of philosophy with database theory is unhelpful. Relational database theory is a self-standing theory based on set theory and first-order predicate logic. Philosophy may provide useful applications of relational theory, but doesn't need to be included within relational theory.

Wrong way around: relational theory is a useful branch of logic, one of many topics addressed by philosophy. Philosophy does not concern itself much with the practical applications of a theory.

Logic isn't philosophical, though formal logic is used by certain branches of philosophy.

Really? wiki.

Dave noted " a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning." Cross out "scientists", replace by "Philosophers", and that statement applies to David's bumbling about.

If I may speak on behalf of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and other Professional Thinkers -- since I at least have some qualifications in the subject: there is a topic 'Philosophical Logic'; there is a topic 'Philosophy of Logic', that David links to; there is a topic 'Logical Philosophy' (being the usual English translation of Wittgenstein's 'Logico-Philosophicus'). Each of those topics is distinct. Non-Philosophers might regret the confusing jargon, but that would be the computer programmers' pot calling the kettle black. 'Philosophy of Logic' (as even a cursory reading of the wiki would tell, although it is dreadful even by wiki standards) is precisely not (formal) Logic: it is outside of Logic. Kant's title (in translation) applies here: 'Critique of Pure Reason'.

Really. It confirms my point that logic doesn't belong to philosophy, but is mainly a tool used by it. If logic inspires branches of philosophy, that's great, but logic is certainly not beholden unto philosophy. We don't need advice from philosophers to effectively use the relational model.

Logic is, yes, a tool used by Philosophers; but also historically (from the Ancient Greeks up to approx 1936), Logic was defined and explored by colleagues at the Amalgamated Union. Just as historically there was no demarcation between 'natural sciences', social sciences, political sciences vs Philosophy, gradually those disciplines from the Enlightenment on carved out their own industries; so (Mathematical) Logic was amongst the last to set itself apart. The giants of Logic of the 19th and early 20th centuries (and on whose work computational theory relies) called themselves Philosophers: DeMorgan, Boole, Frege, Peirce, Russell & Whitehead.

I am quite certain no Philosopher would attempt to advise on using the/a relational model qua an exercise in Philosophy. Calling on some Philosophy to justify some interpretation of the/a model would ipso facto demonstrate amateurish dabbling in Philosophy.

What Brian appeared to be suggesting is that the relational model needs to take into account a philosophical interpretation of logic.

It doesn't.

Agreed.

I see Brian as suffering from the same malaise as Codd's later writings, say 1985 onwards. To impose some variant of Entity-Relational modelling on business modelling/analysis ('business' in a very general sense), in order to mechanise schema design and normalisation, including temporal/6NF normalisation in Brian's case. It lead Codd down, for example, a very deep rabbit hole of categories of nulls. I have given up trying to follow down Brian's rabbit holes.

There is not a (single) "philosophical interpretation of logic". Particularly since ~1930's (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem) there are competing interpretations, some of them (like Constructivism) with particular application to computation and programming language semantics/models of typing. Brian seems unaware there have been a few different Schools of Philosophy after Plato's 'ideal forms'.

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

Quote from dandl on November 17, 2019, 12:47 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 16, 2019, 12:34 pm

Quote from dandl on November 16, 2019, 12:20 pm

Note that I treat amateur criticisms of cosmology, physics, etc., with great suspicion, as they're almost invariably based on whim, conjecture and misunderstanding, along with a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning.

I accept the Universe of Discourse as a convenient convention: the complete range of objects, events, attributes, relations, ideas, etc, that are expressed, assumed, or implied in a discussion. I accept the idea of the Physical Universe, and the idea of Time. I do not accept the particular relationship you construct between them, or the logical conclusion you draw. It just ain't that simple!

Indeed. Conflation of philosophy with database theory is unhelpful. Relational database theory is a self-standing theory based on set theory and first-order predicate logic. Philosophy may provide useful applications of relational theory, but doesn't need to be included within relational theory.

Wrong way around: relational theory is a useful branch of logic, one of many topics addressed by philosophy. Philosophy does not concern itself much with the practical applications of a theory.

Logic isn't philosophical, though formal logic is used by certain branches of philosophy.

Really? wiki.

Dave noted " a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning." Cross out "scientists", replace by "Philosophers", and that statement applies to David's bumbling about.

If I may speak on behalf of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and other Professional Thinkers -- since I at least have some qualifications in the subject: there is a topic 'Philosophical Logic'; there is a topic 'Philosophy of Logic', that David links to; there is a topic 'Logical Philosophy' (being the usual English translation of Wittgenstein's 'Logico-Philosophicus'). Each of those topics is distinct. Non-Philosophers might regret the confusing jargon, but that would be the computer programmers' pot calling the kettle black. 'Philosophy of Logic' (as even a cursory reading of the wiki would tell, although it is dreadful even by wiki standards) is precisely not (formal) Logic: it is outside of Logic. Kant's title (in translation) applies here: 'Critique of Pure Reason'.

Really. It confirms my point that logic doesn't belong to philosophy, but is mainly a tool used by it. If logic inspires branches of philosophy, that's great, but logic is certainly not beholden unto philosophy. We don't need advice from philosophers to effectively use the relational model.

Logic is, yes, a tool used by Philosophers; but also historically (from the Ancient Greeks up to approx 1936), Logic was defined and explored by colleagues at the Amalgamated Union. Just as historically there was no demarcation between 'natural sciences', social sciences, political sciences vs Philosophy, gradually those disciplines from the Enlightenment on carved out their own industries; so (Mathematical) Logic was amongst the last to set itself apart. The giants of Logic of the 19th and early 20th centuries (and on whose work computational theory relies) called themselves Philosophers: DeMorgan, Boole, Frege, Peirce, Russell & Whitehead.

I am quite certain no Philosopher would attempt to advise on using the/a relational model qua an exercise in Philosophy. Calling on some Philosophy to justify some interpretation of the/a model would ipso facto demonstrate amateurish dabbling in Philosophy.

What Brian appeared to be suggesting is that the relational model needs to take into account a philosophical interpretation of logic.

It doesn't.

Agreed.

I see Brian as suffering from the same malaise as Codd's later writings, say 1985 onwards. To impose some variant of Entity-Relational modelling on business modelling/analysis ('business' in a very general sense), in order to mechanise schema design and normalisation, including temporal/6NF normalisation in Brian's case. It lead Codd down, for example, a very deep rabbit hole of categories of nulls. I have given up trying to follow down Brian's rabbit holes.

There is not a (single) "philosophical interpretation of logic". Particularly since ~1930's (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem) there are competing interpretations, some of them (like Constructivism) with particular application to computation and programming language semantics/models of typing. Brian seems unaware there have been a few different Schools of Philosophy after Plato's 'ideal forms'.

#123 · November 18, 2019, 12:22 am

Quote from dandl on November 18, 2019, 12:22 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

As interesting as debates about the finer points of English semantics may be, I'm afraid we're going to wind up going in circles over something that really doesn't matter -- at least, not to successfully discuss topics that matter on this forum.

It's not my intention (ever) to debate semantics -- I leave that to those who care. My intention is to agree semantics, in order to use words to convey meaning. I draw important distinctions between beliefs (trust in things said by others), facts (original or reproducible observations or artefacts) and inferences/conclusions (things that are provisionally true based on facts, models and logic). I don't try to persuade others, but if others use those words differently this hampers communication.

Big Bang is a good theory, but it relies on some rather extreme assumptions and has a number of awkward loose ends. It also violates a principle of symmetry, in that it requires that the universe look different now as against in the past or future. So I remain sceptical, and hopeful.

Hoyle et al.'s steady-state model has largely been discredited. It appears the universe did look different in the past and will probably look different in the future.

This is a reasonable conjecture based on available evidence (facts) and prevailing theory (models and logic). On balance for now my expectation is that this theory will be supplanted by one that is more 'universal', but almost certainly not Hoyle. I am deeply troubled by a number of aspects of the model, and with physics itself, particular as it deals with time. Fortunately there is nothing on which I need to take action, so it remains idle speculation. I don't have to 'believe' anything.

Just as an aside, if you accept BB, try using it to calculate the current size of the Universe. Hint: bigger than 14K LY. Does that make any kind of sense?

It's not my area (pun intended), but having superficially read (sometimes superficial) explanations for this, they make sense to me.

As they do to me.

Note that I treat amateur criticisms of cosmology, physics, etc., with great suspicion, as they're almost invariably based on whim, conjecture and misunderstanding, along with a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning.

There is not a single original idea in any of the concerns I have about BBT. I rely on the work of others (not amateurs) in the field to do the analysis and enumerate their concerns; I merely stiudy their work and summarise. Despite the model fit there are really bad problems with several parts of BBT, so I would expect that theory to be subsumed into a larger one that fixes some of the problems, as has happened in the past. Given the wealth of talent and heavy duty computer power working on these problems without such a theory emerging, I suspect we may be running into limits on human intelligence. It's been a long time since we had a theory as revolutionary as SR/GR or QED.

Really? wiki.

Really. It confirms my point that logic doesn't belong to philosophy, but is mainly a tool used by it. If logic inspires branches of philosophy, that's great, but logic is certainly not beholden unto philosophy. We don't need advice from philosophers to effectively use the relational model.

Philosophy is the proper place for the study of the theoretical underpinnings of any field or discipline. To the extent that Logic (big L) is a field or discipline, philosophy will examine what it means and how to do it. But at the same time logic (small l) is an essential tool of the philosopher in conducting such an examination.

You don't need philosophy to use the RM, but if you have doubts or questions about the applicability of the RM or the methods by which to use it, you're into philosophy. You can define a join by the maths or by the code, but if you want to know what the join means, that's some branch of philosophy.

Be that as it may, I haven't seen mention of any here that compelled alteration to -- or outright rejection of -- any relational model.

We have frequently discussed why the not-quite-RM of SQL is preferred over pure RM, and why noSQL is so popular and effective. There are philosophical questions in there somewhere.

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

As interesting as debates about the finer points of English semantics may be, I'm afraid we're going to wind up going in circles over something that really doesn't matter -- at least, not to successfully discuss topics that matter on this forum.

It's not my intention (ever) to debate semantics -- I leave that to those who care. My intention is to agree semantics, in order to use words to convey meaning. I draw important distinctions between beliefs (trust in things said by others), facts (original or reproducible observations or artefacts) and inferences/conclusions (things that are provisionally true based on facts, models and logic). I don't try to persuade others, but if others use those words differently this hampers communication.

Big Bang is a good theory, but it relies on some rather extreme assumptions and has a number of awkward loose ends. It also violates a principle of symmetry, in that it requires that the universe look different now as against in the past or future. So I remain sceptical, and hopeful.

Hoyle et al.'s steady-state model has largely been discredited. It appears the universe did look different in the past and will probably look different in the future.

This is a reasonable conjecture based on available evidence (facts) and prevailing theory (models and logic). On balance for now my expectation is that this theory will be supplanted by one that is more 'universal', but almost certainly not Hoyle. I am deeply troubled by a number of aspects of the model, and with physics itself, particular as it deals with time. Fortunately there is nothing on which I need to take action, so it remains idle speculation. I don't have to 'believe' anything.

Just as an aside, if you accept BB, try using it to calculate the current size of the Universe. Hint: bigger than 14K LY. Does that make any kind of sense?

It's not my area (pun intended), but having superficially read (sometimes superficial) explanations for this, they make sense to me.

As they do to me.

Note that I treat amateur criticisms of cosmology, physics, etc., with great suspicion, as they're almost invariably based on whim, conjecture and misunderstanding, along with a strange arrogance that presupposes that thousands of scientists who have devoted their professional careers and intellectual lives to study of a subject will have overlooked some issue casually borne of idle speculation in the shower this morning.

There is not a single original idea in any of the concerns I have about BBT. I rely on the work of others (not amateurs) in the field to do the analysis and enumerate their concerns; I merely stiudy their work and summarise. Despite the model fit there are really bad problems with several parts of BBT, so I would expect that theory to be subsumed into a larger one that fixes some of the problems, as has happened in the past. Given the wealth of talent and heavy duty computer power working on these problems without such a theory emerging, I suspect we may be running into limits on human intelligence. It's been a long time since we had a theory as revolutionary as SR/GR or QED.

Really? wiki.

Really. It confirms my point that logic doesn't belong to philosophy, but is mainly a tool used by it. If logic inspires branches of philosophy, that's great, but logic is certainly not beholden unto philosophy. We don't need advice from philosophers to effectively use the relational model.

Philosophy is the proper place for the study of the theoretical underpinnings of any field or discipline. To the extent that Logic (big L) is a field or discipline, philosophy will examine what it means and how to do it. But at the same time logic (small l) is an essential tool of the philosopher in conducting such an examination.

You don't need philosophy to use the RM, but if you have doubts or questions about the applicability of the RM or the methods by which to use it, you're into philosophy. You can define a join by the maths or by the code, but if you want to know what the join means, that's some branch of philosophy.

Be that as it may, I haven't seen mention of any here that compelled alteration to -- or outright rejection of -- any relational model.

We have frequently discussed why the not-quite-RM of SQL is preferred over pure RM, and why noSQL is so popular and effective. There are philosophical questions in there somewhere.

Andl - A New Database Language - andl.org

#124 · November 18, 2019, 12:30 am

Quote from AntC on November 17, 2019, 10:20 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 17, 2019, 8:49 am

Quote from dandl on November 17, 2019, 12:47 am

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 16, 2019, 12:34 pm

Quote from dandl on November 16, 2019, 12:20 pm

I am quite certain no Philosopher would attempt to advise on using the/a relational model qua an exercise in Philosophy. Calling on some Philosophy to justify some interpretation of the/a model would ipso facto demonstrate amateurish dabbling in Philosophy.

What Brian appeared to be suggesting is that the relational model needs to take into account a philosophical interpretation of logic.

It doesn't.

Agreed.

I see Brian as suffering from the same malaise as Codd's later writings, say 1985 onwards. To impose some variant of Entity-Relational modelling on business modelling/analysis ('business' in a very general sense), in order to mechanise schema design and normalisation, including temporal/6NF normalisation in Brian's case. It lead Codd down, for example, a very deep rabbit hole of categories of nulls. I have given up trying to follow down Brian's rabbit holes.

There is not a (single) "philosophical interpretation of logic". Particularly since ~1930's (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem) there are competing interpretations, some of them (like Constructivism) with particular application to computation and programming language semantics/models of typing. Brian seems unaware there have been a few different Schools of Philosophy after Plato's 'ideal forms'.

Having strong opinions on what is and is not a 'truly'/acceptably relational schema based on some predetermination of what attributes can be used for, seems to be an occupational hazard, as I've noted before.

I've been poking the StackOverflow troll again; I plead guilty as charged.

#125 · November 18, 2019, 11:41 am

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 12:30 am

I've been poking the StackOverflow troll again; I plead guilty as charged.

Ah, I see @Erwin fancied a bit of poking too. Em, the idea on StackOverflow is that if the q is muddled, but 'we' know what it's really asking (because we know the textbook it's from, or we know where the instructor filched it from), we don't just give the blimmin' obvious (to us) answer.

No learning will result. Giving a student a fish vs teaching a student to fish for a lifetime, etc.

#126 · November 18, 2019, 12:09 pm

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 11:41 am

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 12:30 am

I've been poking the StackOverflow troll again; I plead guilty as charged.

Ah, I see @Erwin fancied a bit of poking too. Em, the idea on StackOverflow is that if the q is muddled, but 'we' know what it's really asking (because we know the textbook it's from, or we know where the instructor filched it from), we don't just give the blimmin' obvious (to us) answer.

No learning will result. Giving a student a fish vs teaching a student to fish for a lifetime, etc.

No, I deliberately abstained from poking. I even abstained from downvoting. And at least I've given ***something***. Too much, may be so, but the idea on SO is just as well to at least give ***something***. Perhaps you could post some follow-up exercises such as "read up on the JOIN family of operators" in a comment.

Author of SIRA_PRISE

#127 · November 18, 2019, 12:49 pm

Quote from Erwin on November 18, 2019, 12:09 pm

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 11:41 am

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 12:30 am

I've been poking the StackOverflow troll again; I plead guilty as charged.

Ah, I see @Erwin fancied a bit of poking too. Em, the idea on StackOverflow is that if the q is muddled, but 'we' know what it's really asking (because we know the textbook it's from, or we know where the instructor filched it from), we don't just give the blimmin' obvious (to us) answer.

No learning will result. Giving a student a fish vs teaching a student to fish for a lifetime, etc.

No, I deliberately abstained from poking. I even abstained from downvoting. And at least I've given ***something***. Too much, may be so, but the idea on SO is just as well to at least give ***something***. Perhaps you could post some follow-up exercises such as "read up on the JOIN family of operators" in a comment.

That StackOverflow thread is beautiful. It highlights the beauties and horrors of StackOverflow in one succinct mess.

I'm the forum administrator and lead developer of Rel. Email me at dave@armchair.mb.ca with the Subject 'TTM Forum'. Download Rel from https://reldb.org

#128 · November 18, 2019, 1:25 pm

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 18, 2019, 12:49 pm

That StackOverflow thread is beautiful. It highlights the beauties and horrors of StackOverflow in one succinct mess.

SO is at its most beautiful when both question and answer combine to solve a problem for a lot of readers who come along later. One Google, one SO Q&A, problem solved. Poetry in motion. It's still pretty good if the Q & Answers help to inform and educate a wide audience. I'm not sure this one quite makes it.

It can be horrible in so many ways: please do my homework for me; please write my code for me; off topic vote to close; does not answer the question; X-Y answer; don't do that answer; wrong forum; arguments in the comments; etc. This one definitely ticks some boxes.

Andl - A New Database Language - andl.org

#129 · November 18, 2019, 1:27 pm

Quote from dandl on November 18, 2019, 1:25 pm

Quote from Dave Voorhis on November 18, 2019, 12:49 pm

That StackOverflow thread is beautiful. It highlights the beauties and horrors of StackOverflow in one succinct mess.

SO is at its most beautiful when both question and answer combine to solve a problem for a lot of readers who come along later.

That almost never happens. I was being entirely sarcastic.

I'm the forum administrator and lead developer of Rel. Email me at dave@armchair.mb.ca with the Subject 'TTM Forum'. Download Rel from https://reldb.org

#130 · November 19, 2019, 3:14 am

Quote from AntC on November 19, 2019, 3:14 am

Quote from Erwin on November 18, 2019, 12:09 pm

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 11:41 am

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 12:30 am

I've been poking the StackOverflow troll again; I plead guilty as charged.

Ah, I see @Erwin fancied a bit of poking too. Em, the idea on StackOverflow is that if the q is muddled, but 'we' know what it's really asking (because we know the textbook it's from, or we know where the instructor filched it from), we don't just give the blimmin' obvious (to us) answer.

No learning will result. Giving a student a fish vs teaching a student to fish for a lifetime, etc.

No, I deliberately abstained from poking. I even abstained from downvoting. And at least I've given ***something***. Too much, may be so, but the idea on SO is just as well to at least give ***something***.

The aforementioned troll, if he actually understood what he's talking about, would regard your answer as a poke: your Natural Join directly contradicts his "The simple answer is, with id on every file, you can't. [link tables together]" But since clearly (to you and me) those ids are business-oriented identifiers and not "physical, anti-relational, 1960's Record Filing Systems. ... physical pointer to a record", Natural Join is the, em ..., natural solution.

Re 'give something' YMMV. There's at least one other troll lives under the relational-algebra/relational-database/natural-join bridge (and formerly of this parish) whose behaviour amounts to: give only nitpickety boilerplate critique of the OP's confusion; unless it's a perfect question (in his judgment alone); and then give an answer that is as impenetrable as possible, and well beyond the understanding of any beginner.

Perhaps you could post some follow-up exercises such as "read up on the JOIN family of operators" in a comment.

You've given an answer in terms of SQL. Is that what the OP wants? (I can't tell, which is why my comment asks 'What have you tried so far?') They've not tagged SQL; they have tagged relational-database. I see those two as mutually exclusive (which the aforementioned troll kinda suggests). I do see it as valuable learning to get the OP to clarify what they're asking before giving any answer.

I'll abstain (just) from downvoting your answer, on grounds it answers a question nobody has asked (yet).

Quote from Erwin on November 18, 2019, 12:09 pm

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 11:41 am

Quote from AntC on November 18, 2019, 12:30 am

I've been poking the StackOverflow troll again; I plead guilty as charged.

Ah, I see @Erwin fancied a bit of poking too. Em, the idea on StackOverflow is that if the q is muddled, but 'we' know what it's really asking (because we know the textbook it's from, or we know where the instructor filched it from), we don't just give the blimmin' obvious (to us) answer.

No learning will result. Giving a student a fish vs teaching a student to fish for a lifetime, etc.

No, I deliberately abstained from poking. I even abstained from downvoting. And at least I've given ***something***. Too much, may be so, but the idea on SO is just as well to at least give ***something***.

The aforementioned troll, if he actually understood what he's talking about, would regard your answer as a poke: your Natural Join directly contradicts his "The simple answer is, with id on every file, you can't. [link tables together]" But since clearly (to you and me) those ids are business-oriented identifiers and not "physical, anti-relational, 1960's Record Filing Systems. ... physical pointer to a record", Natural Join is the, em ..., natural solution.

Re 'give something' YMMV. There's at least one other troll lives under the relational-algebra/relational-database/natural-join bridge (and formerly of this parish) whose behaviour amounts to: give only nitpickety boilerplate critique of the OP's confusion; unless it's a perfect question (in his judgment alone); and then give an answer that is as impenetrable as possible, and well beyond the understanding of any beginner.

Perhaps you could post some follow-up exercises such as "read up on the JOIN family of operators" in a comment.

You've given an answer in terms of SQL. Is that what the OP wants? (I can't tell, which is why my comment asks 'What have you tried so far?') They've not tagged SQL; they have tagged relational-database. I see those two as mutually exclusive (which the aforementioned troll kinda suggests). I do see it as valuable learning to get the OP to clarify what they're asking before giving any answer.

I'll abstain (just) from downvoting your answer, on grounds it answers a question nobody has asked (yet).

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