When digital objects change — exactly what changes?
Allen H. Renear, David S. Dubin, Karen M. Wickett · Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · 2008
Abstract Formal accounts of digital objects often characterize them as bit strings, graphs, sets, tuples, relations, or other similar constructs from discrete mathematics. Such characterizations imply that these objects cannot undergo changes such as losing or gaining parts, or having their parts rearranged. Yet our discourse about digital objects seems, if taken literally, to imply that those objects routinely undergo such changes. One strategy for dealing with this inconsistency is to affirm an account which leaves digital objects immutable and re‐locates change in the persons interacting with these objects.