RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment - 3D versus 4D.
Dear Colleagues,
I regretfully agree with John's point related to 3D and 4D, or for
that matter on Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.
> All the effort spent in arguing over these issues could have been
> much more profitably spent in making a clean division of the
> axioms for both approaches and giving developers a choice.
>
Matthew West
Principal Consultant
Shell Information Technology International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Other Tel: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.r.west@is.shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John F. Sowa [mailto:sowa@bestweb.net]
> Sent: 28 August 2001 00:43
> To: Chris Partridge
> Cc: Adam Pease; standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org; West, Matthew R
> SITI-GREA-UK; 'pat hayes'
> Subject: Re: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment - 3D versus 4D.
>
>
> Chris and Adam,
>
> This is another of the very many reasons why the goal of a monolithic
> ontology is hopeless:
>
> > I never suggested - or hoped I did not - that there was a
> simple single
> > answer to this question. Philosophers will be arguing about this for
> > decades - they have a vested interest in doing so - and one
> of the standard
> > arguments will be that the distinction is misguided. My
> point is that the
> > issue is well enough understood to recognize some of its important
> > features - one of which is that there are serious problems
> in having a
> > single consistent way of talking about 3D and 4D - along
> with a variety of
> > other metaphysical positions. And that deciding on these points is a
> > particularly important aspect of any top ontology.
>
> I believe that there are strong arguments for both sides (and maybe
> there are even more than just 2 options on this and many related
> issues). The lattice of all theories very nicely accommodates
> all of these views; it can show exactly what axioms are common
> to both, and what axioms are contradictory.
>
> All the effort spent in arguing over these issues could have been
> much more profitably spent in making a clean division of the
> axioms for both approaches and giving developers a choice.
>
> John Sowa
>