Re: Types, sets, and relations
phayes@cs.uiuc.edu
Message-id: <199304282021.AA14946@dante.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1993 15:23:49 +0000
To: macgregor@ISI.EDU
From: phayes@cs.uiuc.edu
X-Sender: phayes@dante.cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Types, sets, and relations
Cc: interlingua@ISI.EDU
Bob, I found this in an earlier message of yours:
>... We and many of our users
>find the distinction between Type and Monadic-Relation useful, but we
>have not discovered a reliable semantic basis for this distinction, and
>I would hazard a guess that we never will.
OK, my last challenge is inappropriate. Could you give me then some idea of
why you find this (apparently meaningless) distinction so useful that you
want to incorporate it into the syntax of the language? For example,
suppose I were to simply ignore it, and just translate all types into
monadic predicates, without telling you. How would you ever discover I had
done this? What difference would it make?
(If the answer is just that I wouldn't be able to translate back
satisfactorily, assume I can do that. I might have a 2nd order predicate
called 'McGregorThinksItsAType'.)
Pat
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