D1. Summary: Separate computer science ontology from philosophical ontology
A short summary of the topic D1.
Philosophical ontology PO can benefit computer science
ontology CO only indirectly. That is, so indirectly that it
seems very strongly that reaching a consensus in what is the
right PO is not a fruitful topic in these sorts of discussion
forums. However, discussions very often seem anyway to get
driven into the kinds of questions that the would-be perfect PO,
PPO, should settle.
Of course, anti-foundationalists in ontology, like John Sowa,
maintain that it is not even a good goal to try to achieve PPO.
In any case, the conception of PPO is totally intelligible.
Take e.g. all 500-page books: all the 500-page long combinations
of unicode symbols. One of these books must be a pretty good
candidate for the PPO, since the set of these book contains
about all that can be written.
Again, what the PPO is, is an interesting topic, perhaps the
most interesting of all topics. It doesn't harm anyone if
someone wants to share views about it. However, even though the
process of debating over it can be interesting and amusing, it
can also be painful.
cheers,
Avril