Am Freitag 19 Februar 2010 02:48:59 schrieb Nick Rudnick:
Hi,
wow, a topic specific response, at last... But I wish you would be more specific... ;-)
A *referrer* (object) refers to a *referee* (object) by a *reference* (arrow).
Doesn't work for me. Not in Ens (sets, maps), Grp (groups, homomorphisms), Top (topological spaces, continuous mappings), Diff (differential manifolds, smooth mappings), ... .
Why not begin with SET and functions...
Sorry, too many Bourbakists in my ancestry, Ens == SET (french: ensemble).
Every human has a certain age, so that there is a function, ageOf:: Human-> Int, which can be regarded as a certain way of a reference relationship between Human and Int, in that by agoOf,
I fail to see a reference here. In particular, I don't see how the one object (set of humans) refers to the other object (set of integers). I suppose the word reference doesn't mean the same for us. For me, a reference is an alias (as in e.g. Java's reference types) or a mention/allusion/citation (as in e.g. "The first verse of this poem is a reference to Macbeth's famous monologue 'Is this a dagger ...'"), a couple of other things I can't now put into english words. None of which I deem similar to a function from one set to another.
* Int reflects a certain aspect of Human,
Okay.
and, on the other hand, * the structure of Human can be traced to Int.
I don't understand that.
Please tell me the aspect you feel uneasy with, and please give me your opinion, whether (in case of accepting this) you would rather choose to consider Human as referrer and Int as referee of the opposite -- for I think this is a deep question.
Thank you in advance,
Nick