RE: SUO: RE: A proposed SUO content outline
Pat Hayes wrote:
>> The situation calculus is hopelessly limited for a general physical
>> ontology. A process ontology would be a more generally useful overall
>> framework. There are a number of quite elaborate process ontologies
>> in the public domain, any of which would be better than the sitcalc.
>> At a minimum, we need notions of process and subprocesss;
>> combinations of processes into larger processes including temporal
>> sequencing, conditions, parallel operations and ideas like a process
>> which 'spawns' other processes. We need to be able to reason both
>> forwards and backwards in time in a uniform framework, and we need to
>> be able to talk about constraints on processes (and classes of
>> processes) in terms of temporal and spatial constraints at the
>> boundaries, things and materials involved in the processes (either
>> being changed by them or required for them), and things conserved by
>> the process.
I discuss the situation calculus and compare it with other
formalisms, including Petri nets and linear logic, in my paper
on processes and causality:
http://www.bestweb.net/~sowa/ontology/causal.htm
This paper is still unfinished because I am in the process of
incorporating the basic material into my half of a book that
I am co-authoring on causality. (Outline below.)
This paper also summarizes the various issues about time and
the fundamental reasons why time and processes cannot be
properly discussed without getting into the fundamental
nature of causality.
John Sowa
_______________________________________________________________
Causality and Causation
In Physics, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence
by Menno Hulswit and John F. Sowa
Part I: Problems and Issues
1. Causality in Science and Ordinary Language (JS)
2. History of the concept of cause (MH)
3. Philosophical Debates (MH)
Part II: A Semeiotic Account of Causation
4. Peirce on final causation (MH)
5. Final causes and natural classes (MH)
6. The riddle of semeiotic causation (MH)
7. A Peircean approach to causation (MH)
Part III: Reasoning About Processes and Causality
8. Causality in Physics (JS)
9. Reasoning about causality (JS)
10. Expressing Causality in Language (JS)