SUO: RE: Lifecycle Integration Schema
Dear Jon,
See comments below.
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.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jon Awbrey [mailto:jawbrey@att.net]
> Sent: 03 September 2003 14:28
> To: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE; SUO
> Subject: Re: Lifecycle Integration Schema
>
>
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>
> LIS. Discussion Note 11
>
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> Matthew,
>
> Passing over some points that we will probably see again,
> hopefully when we're all a lot smarter, and focusing on:
>
> LIS: | possible_individual
> |
> | A <possible_individual> is a <thing>
> | that exists in space and time.
> |
> | This includes:
> |
> | - things where any of the space time dimensions are
> | vanishingly small,
> |
> | - those that are either all space for any time,
> | or all time and any space,
> |
> | - the entirety of all space time,
> |
> | - things that actually exist, or have existed,
> |
> | - things that are fictional or conjectured and
> | possibly exist in the past, present or future,
> |
> | - temporal parts (states) of other individuals,
> |
> | - things that have a specific position, but zero extent in
> | one or more dimensions, such as points, lines, and surfaces.
> |
> | In this context existence is based upon being imaginable within
> | some consistent logic, including actual, hypothetical, planned,
> | expected, or required individuals.
> |
> | EXAMPLE. The pump with serial number ABC123,
> | Battersea Power Station, Sir Joseph Whitworth,
> | Shakespeare, and the starship "Enterprise" can be
> | represented by instances of <possible_individual>.
> |
> | EXPRESS specification:
> |
> | ENTITY possible_individual
> |
> | SUBTYPE OF (thing);
> |
> | END_ENTITY;
> |
> |
> http://www.tc184-sc4.org/wg3ndocs/wg3n1328/lifecycle_integrati
> on_schema/lexical/possible_individual.html
>
> JA: I am trying to figure out:
>
> JA: (1) what you mean by the term "possible_individual" ...
>
> MW: Reading:
>
>
> http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/Documents/Spatio-temporal-Paradigm.pdf
>
> may help to understand what we are getting at.
>
> JA: I will look at it, in good time, but you understand that I am
> presently following my nose like a good parser-positer-prover
> should, and I am obliged to ask myself, and you, whether this
> text in front of me permits of formalization in a systematic,
> step-by-step fashion. Now, I am not so grindstone-nosed as
> to think that it might be done in a single pass without any
> need to backtrack, but if you do not see at least some of
> these issues that I am encountering as representing real
> obstructions to the formalization process, that need to
> be addressed, then I might as well drop this task from
> the queue, so to speak.
>
> MW: I'm following my nose too. I don't claim to know
> much about axiomatisation, and I'm hoping to learn.
>
> MW: The document above is quite short, and outlines
> the approach we are taking. Your choice of course.
>
> Actually, it's you who chose the rasher of your FAT (File
> Access Table)
> to toss on the barbie here, and we're deep in the middle of
> that formal
> fryer at the moment, so I guess I will leave it to your
> culinary acumen
> to pick what cuts you want to roast next.
MW: OK.
>
> JA: (2) whether that meaning can be formalized
> in terms of an axiomatic theory ...
>
> JA: (3) what sorts of things come under the
> heading of a "possible_individual".
>
> JA: (A) From what you say in the Example clause, I take it that
> you consider the Starship Enterprise to be an instance
> of a <possible_individual>.
>
> MW: Yes.
>
> JA: (B) From what you say in the defining clause, I take it that
> you consider the Starship Enterprise to be a <thing> that
> exists in space and time.
>
> MW: Yes, but perhaps in some possible world
> (or more appropriately universe).
>
> JA: That is, of course, a whole new ballpark, one that is
> positively filled with many popular and entertaining
> amusements, but I personally would look for another
> way to understand, in rational scientific terms,
> what is really going on with the phemomena of
> truth in fiction.
>
> MW: I'm open to suggestions, but that is what we do
> in the absence of anything we have found better.
>
> JA: (C) From what you say in the context clause,
> I take it that you consider whatever exists
> to be "imaginable within some consistent logic".
>
> MW: Yes. If the existance of an object is logically inconsistent,
> then we are not interested in it. The star ship Enterprise is
> a good example of something imaginable, which includes things
> that are in our real world/universe.
>
> JA: (.`.) Therefore, I must conclude that you consider the
> Starship Enterprise to come under the heading
> "imaginable within some consistent logic".
>
> MW: Correct.
>
> JA: I am just asking for clarification of these properties that you
> mention in defining or explaining the term "possible_individual".
>
> JA: By what sort of decision process can I judge whether the
> Starship Enterprise is "imaginable within some consistent
> logic, including actual, hypothetical, planned, expected,
> or required individuals"?
>
> JA: In other words:
>
> JA: What is the operational definition of
> "imaginable within some consistent logic".
>
> MW: See above.
>
> JA: Sorry, I have not seen anything like
> a real definition of that yet,
> operational or otherwise.
>
> MW: By logically consistent we meant that the existance
> of objects did not present a logical inconsistency.
>
> I recognize this as the "mark of mathematical existence" (MOME).
> But most folks would draw, if they could figure out how, a very
> hard line between this brand of mathematical existence and, well,
> the existential kind, if you know what I mean. In other words,
> there are models of theories that have very little attachment
> to physical or spacetime realities, and so we still have to
> decide which of the logical models are analogical models
> of any given objective domain in realworld experience.
MW: OK.
>
> MW: Imaginable means that they could exist in this or some
> possible world.
>
> Imaginable means "able to be an object of images".
MW: When I use a term, it means what I intend it to.
> This will bring us quickly back to sign relations.
>
> Conceivable means "able to be an object of concepts".
> This brings us quickly back to the "pragmatic maxim".
>
> Matthew,
>
> At this juncture so many roads diverge that I despair of
> enumerating them.
>
> There's an expository technique that many people resort to
> when they want
> discuss a scientific or technical question in colloquial or
> popular terms,
> and that is to introduce or perhaps to invent some marked
> literary device
> that we might call an "Asterism", say, Bachelorism,
> Evening*/Morning*, the
> *Ship Enterprise, and so on, when what they are really
> talking about is the
> problematic of understanding how it is that so-called
> "hypothetical entities"
> serve any practical purpose in theoretical mathematics or in
> empirical science.
>
> So the option opens up of going off on what is actually
> a very interesting and perfectly respectable tangent,
> picking up the gage of "truth in fiction" (TIF) and
> engaging the terms of its contingenies with all due
> diligence and earnest, and, strange as it may seem,
> much of what is adventured and animadverted along
> those lines is actually relevant to understanding
> all of the figures of hypothesis and all of the
> fixtures of belief that play themselves out as
> they will or nill in mathematics and science.
>
> I am aware of many realworld applications that would
> actually require us to address all of these problems
> and more in our formally implemented theories, if we
> can think of computationally effective ways to do it
> all well, and so these tangents present live options.
> Still, it's really a bit much to lay on one person's
> plate, at one particular sitting, at one day's feast.
MW: Example requirements we have are plans (including
alternative scenarios) and incident investigation -
looking at alternative histories of how we might have
got here after e.g. an accident.
>
> So I think that it would help me to return to the questions that
> I used at the beginning of the Discussion Period thread to focus
> my own attention on what it is that we might have a real hope of
> achieving in the short time frame of a couple weeks' discussion:
>
> | Could you tell us what a typical application is like
> | and what your ontology does for you in such a setting?
MW: A typical application would be the bringing together of
engineering design data for an offshore oil-rig (think pantechnicans
in paper form) from multiple systems, integrate and consolidate
that data for handover to the operator of the rig for putting
into the various operations and maintenance systems.
MW: The ontology gives us a common language that can be used
to describe the design so that the various data can be brought
together into a consolidated data set, so we can check consistency
and completeness of the data set. Being a standard data model
(and reference data) means that we will in time be able to
compare performance and reliability of equipment across Shell.
MW: The next step in developing the ontology would be to add
details like design rules adn regulations so that at least some
design checks can be automated.
> |
> | Could you pick out a few terms or concepts that you think
> | are especially important and tell us how defining them the
> | way you do is critical to success in practical applications?
MW: It doesn't matter which one you look at, the highest priority
is for clarity and lack of ambiguity in meaning. The ontology is
intended to be used by a broad range of people who will not
necessarily meet each other, even when one creates the data
another uses.
MW: One reason for choosing a 4D paradigm is that the principles
are simple and can be rigorously applied.
> |
> | http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg10710.html
>
> I think that the more concrete detail we can bring out to fill in
> the spaces currently swept out by the abstractions of <thing> and
> <abstract_object> and <possible_individual> and so on, the better
> we will come to comprehend what is really desirable and feasible
> in the present setting.
MW: If we return to possible_individual and what can be axiomatised
about it, then 4D objects are subject to classical (4D) mereology.
I would assume that topology would also apply.
>
> Jon Awbrey
>
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