The map is not the territory

My new job on the Erewhon Project is largely based upon the work of my predecessor Arno Mittelbach.

In a series of posts leading up to the new OxPoints Arno rediscovers the issues around using first order predicate calculus on continuous dimensions such as time.

This would appear to be a rediscovery of the Yale Shooting Problem: the real world cannot be modelled in a monotonic logic. Locations are not points but areas, names are not simple properties but have implicit usage start and end times. Only in maths is something as simple as its description: the map is not the territory.