RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment - 3D versus 4D.
Dear Graham,
I agree with Pat. I try to talk about a 4D or 3D VIEW of the
world which amounts to the same thing. In the end we only have
views/descriptions.
The questions when considering different views for me are:
- can I capture that facts:
- precisely?
- accurately?
- unambiguously?
- consistently?
- simply?
- comprehensively?
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: pat hayes [mailto:phayes@ai.uwf.edu]
> Sent: 31 August 2001 23:23
> To: Horn, Graham; West, Matthew R SITI-GREA-UK
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
> Subject: RE: SUO: Re: Ballot Comment - 3D versus 4D.
>
>
> >Dear Matthew,
> > . Perhaps you're right.
> >
> > . Does this mean one can treat something as
> though it were 3-D
> >for some purposes, especially short term ones, when it is
> really 4-D, the
> >way we often do for convenience?
>
> Let me break in here. This discussion illustrates the reason why
> using the terms 3-d and 4-d is problematic. That isn't the issue. Of
> course there are 3-d things, and of course some things last through,
> or are extended in, time, so are in a sense 4-d. Everyone agrees
> about that. The incompatibilities arise from how to properly describe
> *changes* of properties; notice I said DESCRIBE. Again, the facts are
> not in dispute: eg Joes arm is longer in 2000 than it was in 1990.
> The issue is, how is this to be DESCRIBED? Do we say that the thing
> Joes-arm is extended in time, or do we say that it is 3-d and lasts
> through time? Both would produce a 4-d geometry, viewed abstractly,
> but they would DESCRIBE it differently; and the differences in what
> might be called descriptive style are what produce the problems. The
> actual geometry of the world is not in dispute; if that were all it
> were about, we could settle it in a few minutes.
>
> Pat Hayes
>
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>