Whirling Spots of Entity
The ghoulish part of me was piqued. A blog entry about how the funeral industry was adapting to the changing needs of the persistent dead. Things like incorporating the cremated ashes into a cement plaque, or making biocadaver paper out of the pulped cremated remains, so that an everlasting bibliocadaver book could be used to hold the memories of one’s self. Or a geek entrepreneur’s wet dream . . . maintaining a perpetual web page of the deceased.
It struck me as to the ends that marketers will go to sell the permanence, the immortality, the immutable identity of one’s very persona to those who crave permanence, immortality, immutability of one’s very persona.
And I ran across this ghoulish blog in a diversion from some heavy studying of “domain-driven design” – a concept in software architecture and design that relies heavily on the concept of “entity.”
Not to get into the esoterics of just what an “entity” might or might not be, especially when contrasted to a “value” object, suffice to say that an “entity” can be a thingy, real or imagined, virtual or physical, that uniquely exists and may even need to be remembered with its own identity.
Take a child. When she is drawing with markers, she cares about the color, about the sharpness of the point. And if there are two markers of the same color, the same point style, it matters not which of the two she uses. The marker is a “value.” It is not unique. If it is lost or dries up, and is replaced, there is still a marker. It will be used with the same functionality.
But put that same child in front of the refrigerator, and with no hesitation what-so-ever, she will give a detailed critique as to which drawings are hers, and which are her brother’s. For the drawings are now “entities.” Unique. They have an “identity.”
And take that same child again . . . this time within another “domain.” The child herself can be an “entity.” A unique, one-of-a-kind thingy with a specific one-of-a-kind identity. A number in the Social Security Administration’s collection of one-of-a-kind human thingies. But in yet another “domain,” she is but a “value.” Just one of 30 monoclonal first-graders on a school bus. In the “domain” of the transportation system, the school bus is the “entity” and the kids are “values” identifying the characteristics of the school bus.
But back to that child. That Social Security number still does not make her “unique.” Errors have and do happen. Social Security number identities even get stolen.
And just what is it that does give a person a unique identity from that first baby picture – the sonogram, to something far beyond the cement plague of congealed cremated remains. Can’t be a name. Names change, get changed. Can’t be finger prints. Tragedy does happen with amputation of hands, arms. Can’t be dental records. Things happen over time there too.
Can’t even be DNA. Although rare as it is, human chimerism does exist. [A chimera is the result of fraternal twins fusing together at a very early stage in development. The offspring can have different DNA in different tissues of the body.]
So what might it be? What is it that makes me me. You you.
Remembering the mirror on the bathroom wall, it placed me somewhere between my eleventh and fourteenth birthdays. There were several occasions when I stood before that mirror. Pinching my face. Feeling the physical reality. Asking, pleading with that reflection in the mirror. “Who are you?” “What are you?” “Why?” “How is it?” “How can it be?” And I would finally give up with a head-spinning wonderment of things far beyond my comprehension and understanding.
“Who are you?”
“What are you?”
“And what makes you unique?”
“And what is the entity key that identifies you throughout eternity?”
“At the resurrection, what will it be that instantiates that entity as me?”
In that ghoulish world . . . it is ashes to ashes incorporated into cement or paper. It is DNA scraped from the inside of a cheek, analyzed, and incorporated into a DNA database. It may even be sperm or eggs harvested immediately after death and frozen. It may be a web page that hangs around until a server crashes. It may be the images as photographs, or voice prints. It may be the reciting of oral history.
A person as an entity. A permanent, immutable, identity.
In that software world, that person as an entity is nothing but spots of magnetism whirling on a disk drive platter. Some unique arrangement of spots, with their only characteristic of being magnetized or not. Spots are values. Values that give identity to a personified entity.
But for that child. She too is spots. I am spots. You too are spots.
But spots of what?
And when the ashes wash away . . . and then are assimilated into new living things . . . and the soul doeth sleep . . .
Of what are spots?
For those spots existed in some form from the beginning of time and will continue to exist on throughout the duration.
Whirling spots of magnetism on a disk drive platter.
Whirling spots of unique identity whirling in the dust of whirling stars within whirling galaxies within realms of heavens beyond comprehension.
And always remember, that God made you as a truly special and unique human being, just like everybody else.
The Refectory Manager
It struck me as to the ends that marketers will go to sell the permanence, the immortality, the immutable identity of one’s very persona to those who crave permanence, immortality, immutability of one’s very persona.
And I ran across this ghoulish blog in a diversion from some heavy studying of “domain-driven design” – a concept in software architecture and design that relies heavily on the concept of “entity.”
Not to get into the esoterics of just what an “entity” might or might not be, especially when contrasted to a “value” object, suffice to say that an “entity” can be a thingy, real or imagined, virtual or physical, that uniquely exists and may even need to be remembered with its own identity.
Take a child. When she is drawing with markers, she cares about the color, about the sharpness of the point. And if there are two markers of the same color, the same point style, it matters not which of the two she uses. The marker is a “value.” It is not unique. If it is lost or dries up, and is replaced, there is still a marker. It will be used with the same functionality.
But put that same child in front of the refrigerator, and with no hesitation what-so-ever, she will give a detailed critique as to which drawings are hers, and which are her brother’s. For the drawings are now “entities.” Unique. They have an “identity.”
And take that same child again . . . this time within another “domain.” The child herself can be an “entity.” A unique, one-of-a-kind thingy with a specific one-of-a-kind identity. A number in the Social Security Administration’s collection of one-of-a-kind human thingies. But in yet another “domain,” she is but a “value.” Just one of 30 monoclonal first-graders on a school bus. In the “domain” of the transportation system, the school bus is the “entity” and the kids are “values” identifying the characteristics of the school bus.
But back to that child. That Social Security number still does not make her “unique.” Errors have and do happen. Social Security number identities even get stolen.
And just what is it that does give a person a unique identity from that first baby picture – the sonogram, to something far beyond the cement plague of congealed cremated remains. Can’t be a name. Names change, get changed. Can’t be finger prints. Tragedy does happen with amputation of hands, arms. Can’t be dental records. Things happen over time there too.
Can’t even be DNA. Although rare as it is, human chimerism does exist. [A chimera is the result of fraternal twins fusing together at a very early stage in development. The offspring can have different DNA in different tissues of the body.]
So what might it be? What is it that makes me me. You you.
Remembering the mirror on the bathroom wall, it placed me somewhere between my eleventh and fourteenth birthdays. There were several occasions when I stood before that mirror. Pinching my face. Feeling the physical reality. Asking, pleading with that reflection in the mirror. “Who are you?” “What are you?” “Why?” “How is it?” “How can it be?” And I would finally give up with a head-spinning wonderment of things far beyond my comprehension and understanding.
“Who are you?”
“What are you?”
“And what makes you unique?”
“And what is the entity key that identifies you throughout eternity?”
“At the resurrection, what will it be that instantiates that entity as me?”
In that ghoulish world . . . it is ashes to ashes incorporated into cement or paper. It is DNA scraped from the inside of a cheek, analyzed, and incorporated into a DNA database. It may even be sperm or eggs harvested immediately after death and frozen. It may be a web page that hangs around until a server crashes. It may be the images as photographs, or voice prints. It may be the reciting of oral history.
A person as an entity. A permanent, immutable, identity.
In that software world, that person as an entity is nothing but spots of magnetism whirling on a disk drive platter. Some unique arrangement of spots, with their only characteristic of being magnetized or not. Spots are values. Values that give identity to a personified entity.
But for that child. She too is spots. I am spots. You too are spots.
But spots of what?
And when the ashes wash away . . . and then are assimilated into new living things . . . and the soul doeth sleep . . .
Of what are spots?
For those spots existed in some form from the beginning of time and will continue to exist on throughout the duration.
Whirling spots of magnetism on a disk drive platter.
Whirling spots of unique identity whirling in the dust of whirling stars within whirling galaxies within realms of heavens beyond comprehension.
And always remember, that God made you as a truly special and unique human being, just like everybody else.
The Refectory Manager
posted by The Refectory Manager | 12:16 AM
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