Talk:Q4406616
Autodescription — concrete object (Q4406616)
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"Partially tangible"?
[edit]@Bovlb: Could you explain why you added the alias "partially tangible object"? It's unclear what that means, or how that's the same thing as a "concrete object" as described. --Yair rand (talk) 16:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
- @Yair rand: Sorry to be slow to respond. "partially tangible object" is a concept taken from the Cyc project. "Tangible" here means much the same as "concrete" or "physical". The philosophical idea behind "partially" is that what is referred to here as "concrete object" may include things that have non-tangible aspects. For example, the concept "George Washington" has social aspects that go beyond his physical incorporation. While it is theoretically possible to separate out concrete objects that have no non-tangible component, it is generally not as useful, and I do not believe we are doing so here. Cheers, Bovlb (talk) 17:14, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Definition
[edit]One distinguishing statement could be that concrete objects are destructible while abstract objects are non-destructible. In particular, by revealing the identity of concrete objects, e.g. humans, they can be put to danger, while revealing abstract objects, e.g. numbers or sentential ideas, does not seem to put them in danger. Needs double check.
Another statement could be that abstract objects have no states, only qualities; however, that does not in some sense hold true of e.g. finite automata, mathematical objects. However, in ontological sense, these automata do not really have a state; their "states" are a different concept. Even languages have states in that they become different as time passes, acquiring more words and senses. Dan Polansky (talk) 20:19, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
- Is language a concrete or abstract? It can be in some sense desctructible. --Infovarius (talk) 17:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Physical referent?
[edit]It unclear from where current description "object with a physical referent" comes from, or why one would think that concrete object necessarily has physical referent or is tangible (as per some aliases). This item currently links bunch of external materials but really none of these seem to mention "concrete object", not even these that are said to be "equivalent classes" or "exact matches". That's quite messy. The only exception is FactGrid item but that's apparently copied from Wikidata and as such is unreliable.
As I understand, the notion of "concrete object" normally comes up when contrasted to "abstract object", and the abstract-concrete distinction (see en:abstract and concrete) often and necessarily isn't understood as the distinction between physical and non-physical. I believe it'd make more sense to understand "concrete" here in "concrete object" more generally as "definite and specific" rather than "physical". This would also make distinction between this item and physical object (Q223557) more clear. 2001:7D0:81DB:1480:657B:1A95:4A27:3CB 08:57, 26 June 2023 (UTC)