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by Vektorceraptor 908 days ago
But that's not entirely true, because the mapping alone doesn't give you any ordering relation or comparison options. Translating the natural numbers into bytes doesn't tell you how they should be ordered. We determine the 'form' of the order with our minds.
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Could the sort be another form? Taking the article’s example, I could sort a bunch of tables by height or weight or some other attribute. That sort order then takes on a form that was not there prior to the sort. To think of it another way, after the tables (or values in CS) are sorted, the sort has been “assembled”.
I don't think so. Height and weight are sorted/ordered numerical, and numerals are not properties of the table, nor of its weight or height. The form of the relation is abstract, it's actually between the values attached and not the objects, and therefore in our mind.