If this was a philosophy forum rather than a programming one, I might pursue this thread further.
No, this isn't a philosophy forum: But then, philosophical reasoning belongs
in every forum :). At any rate, I thought the passage quoted was interesting
and relevant, and that a great number of the objects we programmers use, or
discover, or invent, are propped up entirely by groups of relations
(conventions, if you will): The very concepts Object and Class in OO for
example. And in a deeply OO language, Classes are Objects too. And when
programmers get caught up in the "programming objects" == "real world
objects" (and variations along those lines), it can be pertinent to ask them
what "real world object" the Class object models.