Michael:
>> Jesper will correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood him to mean
>> that a point whose position is defined as being on the edge of a
>> body
>> water could be considered to be half-in and half-out of that
>> water -
>> half wet, half dry in a *spatial* rather than *temporal* way.
>
> hard swallowing here punctologically grant
> & will explain why below
>
>> Hence,
>> I imagine, his choice of non-tidal water.
>
> the potomac at mdvawv & dcmdvan is nontidal too
> so i dont get this imaginary distinction if any
No distinction at all, in that case. I assumed you were suggesting
the Potomac sloshed up and down regularly, wetting and drying the
points in question, and my geography is a bit vague in that part of
the US. Probably the phrase about the "low water mark" made me think
of tides.
> ok but a point isnt an infinitesimal object
> in objective truth
> & i thought we had all more or less accepted that
>
> maybe you can still make a point an object in your mind
>
> & the idea may be acceptable in calculus
>
> but it feels highly dubious in point of punctological truth
> which has already postulated that a point isnt physical
> repeat isnt a physical object
> but exists only in nonphysical reality
OK, you're right. I was mixing terminology. A zero-dimensional point
is one step beyond (beneath) an infinitesimal object. But calculus
arrives at the properties of those mathematically ideal, non-physical
points (like, say, the gradient of the tangent to a curve at a single
point on its curvature) by sneaking up on them through the
intermediary of infinitesimals - that "limit as r->0" idea.
So: throw away the infinitesimal intermediaries (as I should have
done first time round). I do maintain that those non-physical points
can still have properties (of which *location* is only the most
salient). And one of those non-physical properties can be rigorously-
defined part-ownership by a bordering nation.
Hey, if I can patent an *idea*, I can certainly part-own a non-
physical entity ...
Grant