RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
Dear Matthew,
. You raise an interesting point. In normal
information modelling, processes (activities/events) are relations, since
they always are done to something, even if, as in the reflexive case, it is
the doer themself.
. Until you asked this question, I hadn't ever considered
intransitive verbs. I suspect they still can be expressed with either a
direct or indirect object, or both. Eg. I thought a thought. If I ran, it
will have had some attributes, such as manner, speed, and location. I'll
think on this further, but fir now, I'll keep with the proposition that
actions are:
* relations; and
* 4-D.
Cheers Graham Horn
National Data Standards Unit
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
================================================
Phone: 02.6244.1094
Fax: 02.6244.1199
Email: Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au>
-----Original Message-----
From: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK [mailto:Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 9:31 PM
To: Horn, Graham; 'pat hayes'
Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
Dear Graham,
You are at least (apparantly) missing activities/events.
See other comments below.
Regards
Matthew
============================================
Matthew West
Operations & Asset Management
Shell Services International
H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
Mobile: +44 7796 336538
E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
http://www.shellservices.com/
============================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Horn, Graham [mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]
> Sent: 15 January 2001 09:19
> To: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK; 'pat hayes'
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
>
>
> Dear Matthew,
> . I'll try to restate my interpretation
> in light of
> your comments
>
> . From it I take it that there are three kinds
> of items to consider:
> 1. objects, including:
> a. material ones like rocks, cars and people; &
> a. immaterial ones like particular emotions,
> sensations, opinions, knowledge,
> whose attributes
> (including existence) are 4-D;
MW: can you give some examples of particular emotions please? You might mean
upset, or you might mean me being upset this evening after the ball valve on
the hot water header tank broke off.
MW: Where do you put more ordinary classes, like car, person (as opposed to
my car and me). Do you see these as material or immaterial?
> 2. relations between objects, whose attributes are
> also 4-D, eg. friendship; and
> 3. time histories of objects and relations, and their
> attributes, which are devoid of the traditional 4 dimensions;
>
>
> . Comments interspersed below, prefaced "GH2> ".
>
> . Hope this is that a fair summary, or is there a
> point you
> feel I've missed?
>
> . I think the disconnect was the difference
> between instances
> and their natures.
>
>
>
> Cheers Graham Horn
> National Data Standards Unit
> Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
> ================================================
> Phone: 02.6244.1094
> Fax: 02.6244.1199
> Email: Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK
> [mailto:Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com]
> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 7:04 PM
> To: Horn, Graham; 'pat hayes'
> Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
>
> Dear Graham,
>
> I thought I had answered the question (right at the bottom)
> but I'll have
> another go.
>
> To be honest I don't find your descriptions very clear
> (precise), they are
> vague enough that thye might include everything, but equally
> they might not.
> This is why I offered some alternative classifications,
> which, despite Pat
> and John's initial comments, I think can encompass everything - even
> emotions etc. I will ask some questions to try to clarify
> what you mean, and
> explain what I see as the ambiguity.
>
> GH2> Maybe it is the fact that I come from an engineering
> perspective,
> and possibly have a different frame of reference.
>
> > > . From it I take it that there are three kinds
> > > of items to consider:
> > > * objects, including immaterial ones like emotions,
> > > sensations, opinions, knowledge, whose attributes
> > > (including existence) are 4-D;
>
> MW: You talk a lot about immaterial objects, but not much
> about material
> ones. I assume you mean things like the chair I am sitting on amongst
> others. The immaterial objects you refer to, I would map to
> class, so your
> object could be a supertype of my class and individual (but
> see below).
>
> MW: I really don't know what you mean by these objects having
> 4D attributes.
> Please could you give some examples of what you mean.
>
> GH3> What you are calling classes are not "emotions, sensations,
> opinions, knowledge, but rather types of emotions,
> sensations, opinions,
> knowledge. If I know Einstein's general law of relativity,
> then that is a
> particular knowledge I have. I may loose this through
> forgetfulness, so the
> knowledge is 4-D. However the type of knowledge is, in this case
> theoretical, and that is timeless, and indeed even
> dimensionless regarding
> space as well as time.
>
> GH3> I would even suggest that all conceptual types of
> things are devoid
> of the traditional 4 dimensions. The only types of things that are
> dimensional are:
> * types addressing space-time, eg large, long-lasting, etc; and
> * types whose definitions depend on either:
> = levels of knowledge, and/or
> = prescribed definitions where the definition may be changed by
> decree, etc. .
>
> > > * relations between objects, whose attributes are
> > > also 4-D, eg. friendship; and
>
> MW: I think it is clear these map (basically) to relations in
> my terms.
>
> GH3> Except that you regard relations as 3-D ie. timeless
> and I do not.
> As above, I can be a friend to Fred, but I may cease being a
> friend when he
> double crosses me. (He may never have been a friend to me,
> but that's a
> different issue regarding the vectorial aspect of
> friendship.) Again this
> 4-D. However the type of friendship is, in this case possibly
> camaraderie,
> and that is again timeless.
>
> > > * time histories of objects and relations, and their
> > > attributes, which are 3-D (timeless);
>
> GH3> I would now argue these are again conceptual, and
> devoid of all the
> 4 traditional dimensions, not just time.
>
> MW: You seem to have separated histories from the objects
> that have them
> (which I would not) but yes this is important.
>
> GH3> I made that separation in order to show that the time
> histories of
> both objects and relations are both conceptual, and hence themselves
> timeless (and spaceless).
>
> > > . Is that a fair summary, or is there a point
> > > you feel I've missed?
>
> MW: What I miss is what I would call data types, e.g. ASCII
> strings, double
> precision floating point numbers, etc, that are how computers
> represent
> information.
>
> GH3> Again, these are concepts, and so are devoid of the 4
> traditional
> dimensions.
>
> GH3> I see a major disconnect was that you were not distinguishing
> between the conceptual types and the particular instances.
> From a data or
> information management perspective you were not
> differentiating between the
> information, and the meta-information.
>
> GH3> From a data management perspective:
> * a database contains data, while
> * a data dictionary contains metadata describing the data in the
> database concerned.
> The difference is that metadata is actually a type of data, and the
> implementation of a data dictionary can be, and often is, a database.
> Abstractions can thus also be nested. The metadata for the
> database that
> forms a data dictionary is referred to as the metametadata.
>
> GH3> An aspect of the difference between our approaches is
> that all of
> the attributes of any non-conceptual thing or relation is that its
> attributes can continuously vary over time - smoothly and/or
> abruptly. The
> witnessing of certain actions (often called something like
> "emotion rousing"
> actions) can often cause abrupt changes in emotions, and
> relations such as
> friendship.
>
> GH3> I would sum up by saying that things and information
> are located in
> the 4 dimensions, but their nature or type are not.
>
>
> Regards
> Matthew
> ============================================
> Matthew West
> Operations & Asset Management
> Shell Services International
> H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
> Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
> Mobile: +44 7796 336538
> E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
> http://www.shellservices.com/
> ============================================
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Horn, Graham [mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]
> > Sent: 12 January 2001 02:39
> > To: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK; 'pat hayes'
> > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
> >
> >
> > Dear Matthew,
> > . Thank you for providing this additional
> > information.
> >
> >
> > . In answer to your question, yes that is the
> > sort of relation I mean.
> >
> > . I would greatly appreciate an answer to the question I
> > asked, which is repeated below.
> >
> >
> >
> > Cheers Graham Horn
> > National Data Standards Unit
> > Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
> > ================================================
> > Phone: 02.6244.1094
> > Fax: 02.6244.1199
> > Email: Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au>
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK
> > [mailto:Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com]
> > Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 5:02 AM
> > To: Horn, Graham; 'pat hayes'
> > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
> >
> >
> > Dear Graham,
> >
> > I take it you mean a relation that lasts for some time?
> > From a 4D perspective this would be analysed as (for friendship):
> > Person 1 has a friend-of state S1
> > Person 2 has a friend-of state S2
> > There is a friendship relation between S1 and S2
> > There is a constraint that the time period for S1 and S2 is
> the same.
> >
> > So it boils down to spatio-temporal extents and timeless
> > relations. You can
> > do this with all time based relations, though interestingly
> > the analysis
> > varies for different types of relation, which is one the
> > things that makes
> > it worthwhile.
> > Regards
> > Matthew
> > ===========================================
> > Matthew West
> > Operations & Asset Management
> > Shell Services International
> > H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
> > Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
> > Mobile: +44 7796 336538
> > E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
> > <mailto:Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>
> > http://www.shellservices.com/ <http://www.shellservices.com/>
> > ===========================================
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Horn, Graham [mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]
> > <mailto:[mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]>
> > > Sent: 11 January 2001 02:46
> > > To: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK; 'pat hayes'
> > > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > <mailto:standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org>
> > > Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks, Matthew,
> > > . This gives a different perspective of
> > > which I was unaware.
> > >
> > > . Into which category do you place my 2nd category?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Cheers Graham Horn
> > > National Data Standards Unit
> > > Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
> > > ===============================================
> > > Phone: 02.6244.1094
> > > Fax: 02.6244.1199
> > > Email: Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au
> <mailto:Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au>
> > <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au> >
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: West, Matthew MR SSI-GREA-UK
> > > [mailto:Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com]
> > <mailto:[mailto:Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com]>
> > > Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 3:48 AM
> > > To: Horn, Graham; 'pat hayes'
> > > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> > <mailto:standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org>
> > > Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
> > >
> > > Dear Graham,
> > >
> > > I would say that there are 3 basic types of thing:
> > >
> > > 1. things that have an extension (exist) in space time (I
> > > would call these individuals - but this is a broader use than
> > > some would give this word).
> > >
> > > 2. Things that have members (rather than parts), such as
> > > classes/sets/collections. These are timeless.
> > >
> > > 3. Ordered collections - Tuples, classifications of them are
> > > known as relations. These are timeless, and indeed one way
> > > of defining tuples derives them from sets.
> > >
> > > Regards
> > > Matthew
> > > ===========================================
> > > Matthew West
> > > Operations & Asset Management
> > > Shell Services International
> > > H3229, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA, UK.
> > > Tel: +44 207 934 4490 Fax: 7929
> > > Mobile: +44 7796 336538
> > > E-mail: Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com
> <mailto:Matthew.R.West@is.shell.com>
> > http://www.shellservices.com/ <http://www.shellservices.com/>
> > ===========================================
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Horn, Graham [mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]
> <mailto:[mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au]>
> > > Sent: 09 January 2001 01:58
> > > To: 'pat hayes'
> > > Cc: standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
> <mailto:standard-upper-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org>
> > > Subject: RE: SUO: RE: Re: More KIF-ified Ontology Content
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Pat,
> > > . Thanks for this reply.
> > >
> > > . From it I take it that there are three kinds
> > > of items to consider:
> > > * objects, including immaterial ones like emotions,
> > > sensations, opinions, knowledge, whose attributes
> > > (including existence) are 4-D;
> > > * relations between objects, whose attributes are
> > > also 4-D, eg. friendship; and
> > > * time histories of objects and relations, and their
> > > attributes, which are 3-D (timeless);
> > >
> > > . Is that a fair summary, or is there a point
> > > you feel I've missed?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Graham Horn
> > > National Data Standards Unit
> > > Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
> > > ===============================================
> > > Phone: 02.6244.1094
> > > Fax: 02.6244.1199
> > > Email: Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au
> <mailto:Graham.Horn@aihw.gov.au> <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au
> <mailto:graham.horn@aihw.gov.au> >
> >
>