The issue Ray raises is clearly dealt with by Deming in several books, the one I happen to own being "Four Days with Dr Deming" which was still listed on Amazon at least last year. It is simply that most constructs do not have a single meaning or metric, and there is no point ignoring this fact, as different people will use conflicting definitions. You have to agree and use an "objective definition" to make the method and use of the measurement practical. One example from the book is "number of people attending seminar": for number of chairs it is the number present at one time, for catering it is the number wanting to eat, for reporting it will be all those who show up, for accounting it may include no-shows who still get billed. If you want to get philosophical, you can bring in Wittgenstein's theory of language.
If you type "where is reality?" in Ask Jeeves, maybe it's a small town in the mid-west.
Allan
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