in reply to The world is not object oriented
In other words I'm dealing with "things" whose only reality is convention. Conventions whose intrinsic non-reality is demonstrated when they change over time, or depending on location, causing no end of headaches for software maintainers.
I think classifying such things as instrinsically not-real misses something important. Intangible, non-static, evolving things, can still be considered "real". Historians deal with such "conventional" realities all the time. The following quote on "objects" of discourse brings such "contextual" existence to the fore:
The conditions necessary for the appearance of an object of discourse, the historical conditions required if one is to 'say anything' about it, and if several people are to say different things about it, the conditions necessary if it is to exist in relation to other objects, if it is to establish with them relations of resemblance, proximity, distance, difference, transformation - as we can see, these conditions are many and imposing. Which means that one cannot speak of [just] anything at any time; it is not easy to say something new; it is not enough for us to open our eyes, to pay attention, or to be aware, for new objects suddenly to light up and emerge out of the ground. ... the object does not await in limbo the order that will free it and enable it it to become embodied in a visible and prolix objectivity; it does not pre-exist itself, held back by some obstacle at the first edges of light. It exists under the positive conditions of a complex group of relations.
- Michel Foucalt (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge & the discourse on language.
In Section
Meditations