Data and what they refer to

In data modeling there is an implicit assumption of a one-to-one correspondence between a data model and the world which the data convey information about. Each data value in the data base is seen to correspond to a property of the world. For simple situations this is enough, e.g., one data record for each person. For complex situations the simple one-to-one correspondence is no longer enough. When the number of worldly phenomena and the number of data names grow, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of how the various concepts relate to each other. Many different views of the world may co-exist, each view serving different purpose and/or different people. Conceptual data models have been proposed as tools for relating the various world views. For a conceptual model to be successful it should relate well to common sense views of the world, and also relate well to commonly known mathematical formalism. We relate to a common sense view of the world which is based on the old distinctions among ideas, concepts, matter, and images. The mathematical form is elementary discrete mathematics. A visual language for data modeling is proposed.