Subject: Re: General formula

From: "Bob Blakley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 16:27:58 -0500

Ed,

>Wait -- this is NOT the issue here. Bob Blakley wrote that equal lifetimes
>would indicate a "property" -- that the corresponding attributes would
>actually be dependent or at least have a tendency to be dependent. I replied
>negatively -- such property or tendency does NOT exist. Lifetime distance
>does not correlate with attribute independency -- much in the same way that
>a pointer's value (lifetime) does not correlate with a pointer's address
(attribute).
>They are two entirely different concepts, not only different values. Thus,
the fact
>that the lifetimes are equal or even similar for two attributes does not
authorize
>me to say anything about the attributes' dependencies.

This may be the source of our apparent disagreement -- I say apparent because
it does not now and has not yet appeared to me that we actually disagree
on anything of substance.

I did NOT write that equal lifetimes indicate a property.  What I *did* write
is that
there are many real-world cases where there is *either* exact equivalence of
lifetimes because of dependence, or dependence without exact equivalence
of lifetimes.  I gave an example of the former.  I noted that your formula
does
not *and is not intended* to cover these cases if you treat the dependent
attributes as separate and plug their lifetimes into the formula as if they
were
independent.  I don't think you disagree with any of this, nor do I think any
of this
contradicts the claims you are making for the forumula in cases where its
premises are satisfied.

In this sense, the formula is not "general" in the sense that gravitation is
"universal".
It covers a wide variety of situations, but not every situation which has been
observed in the real world at the appropriate level of abstraction.
--bob

Bob Blakley ([email-masked])
Chief Scientist, Dascom