🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct29.135623.11557@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com (Daryl McCullough) writes:
>In article <1992Oct26.232936.119348@Cookie.secapl.com>,
>frank@Cookie.secapl.com (Frank Adams) writes:

>>No, because it is not an *arbitrary* description here.  If I abstract
>>from the atmosphere of a planet to a description in terms of ideal
>>gases, I don't get an arbitrary such description; my choice of
>>abstraction forces a single description on me.
>
>Exactly. Your choice of abstraction produces a unique description, but
>there is more than one possible abstraction. What I am denying is that
>there is a unique, objective abstraction operator that can tell me the
>functional organization of a physical system (as opposed to a formal
>system such as a program).

It's true that there is more than one such operator, but that 
doesn't mean we can't find the right one for a given purpose.

>I will agree that *given* an abstraction function, and *given* a
>decomposition of a system into parts, then it may be possible to say,
>objectively, whether the system with that decomposition and that
>abstraction function has a certain functional organization.  However,
>the choice of abstraction function and decomposition are not
>objective, and can be done in more than one way.

The choice can be done in more than one way, but so what?

What do you mean by saying it's not objective?

-- jd