RE: Interoperability and Vagueness
Dear Chris,
See below.
Regards
Matthew West
Reference Data Architecture and Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44 7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Angus [mailto:chris.angus@btinternet.com]
> Sent: 17 January 2005 15:30
> To: West, Matthew R SIPC-OFD/321; 'John F. Sowa'
> Subject: RE: Interoperability and Vagueness
>
>
> Matthew
>
> You write "Given this it is useful to standardise the
> identification of
> concepts, because concepts don't change (only their
> importance to us)". Do
> you see immutability as a being a necessary property of each and every
> concept?
MW: Yes. If it has "changed", what it has changed to is a different concept
from what it changed from. I would want to know about both of them, so
they had better be different things. What might change are the ones I wished
to include in some "current view of the world". Some people talk about
"versions" as a way of managing this.
> And as a supplementary question, what aspect(s) of
> a concept do
> you see as being immutable?
MW: If we talk about classes, then anything that would cause its membership
to change is a change in the concept. For individuals, anything that would
cause its spatio-temporal extent to change is a change in the concept. This
means that adding some knowledge and experience to an ontology may not always
cause the concept to change. For example, you meet someone and learn their
name, later on you find that they are married. Adding the knowledge that they
are married does not change the concept of the person.
>
> In the sense that inherent in the notion of a 'concept' is
> the notion of a
> class of objects I guess that you might be saying that since
> the extension
> of a class cannot change then nor can the concept that is the
> representation
> of that class. I am not sure that that is sufficient to
> necessarily make a
> concept immutable. I would welcome your thoughts, comments or
> clarifications.
MW: Well I would be interested in an example where you think a concept
has changed without changing its extent.
>
> Regards
> Chris
>
> ____________________________________________
> Dr Chris Angus
> Chief Architect
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