RE: SUO: RE: A proposed SUO content outline
Ian,
I think your position implies that you are an 'Endurantist' - see my
comments on role in my paper mailed earlier.
You only need to resort to roles and relations if you are an 'Endurantist' -
a 'Perdurantist' does not need to. However there are other comments that
suggest you are not such a whole-hearted 'Endurantist'. I think it may be
easier to sort out ontologies if we agree which framework (which ontological
architecture) we are working within.
Chris
You wrote:
> > >
> > > Functional Physical Object
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all physical
> > > objects that have functional, but need not have material
> > > continuity, e.g. the Chairman of Shell.
> >
> >I'm somewhat confused by your example. It seems to me that
> the concept
> >"Chairman of Shell" can be understood in two different ways,
> either as the
> >class of all people who have assumed this role or as the person who
> >currently holds this title.
>
> I think neither of these is intended. The point is that the
> chairmanship (like the US presidency, various categories of royalty,
> etc.) is temporally continuous and always identified with a single
> person at a time. It cannot be identified either with a person or
> with a set. It is a distinct category with its own rules (as in 'the
> king is dead: long live the king!') Restricting yourself to people
> and sets is too limiting: there are more kinds of thing in the world
> than just those two.
I disagree that "Chairman of Shell" is a distinct category. I would say
that it's a binary relation between a person and the Shell Corporation. If
we're interpreting relations extensionally, then it's ultimately a set of
2-tuples.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
[mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org]On Behalf Of Ian Niles
Sent: 27 February 2001 21:08
To: standard-upper-ontology@ieee.org
Subject: RE: SUO: RE: A proposed SUO content outline
Pat,
Please see my comments below. Once again, for brevity, I've done
some editing.
-Ian
> > >
> > > Activity
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all individuals
> > > that are something happening to bring about change.
> >
> >As I've mentioned in other emails, the subject of change has not been
> >systematically addressed in the merged ontology. I'm researching the
> >possibility of incorporating something like the Situation
> Calculus, and I
> >would welcome any suggestions along these lines.
>
> 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.
OK, any pointers to process ontologies that you can recommend would be
greatly appreciated.
>
> > > Physical Object
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all individuals
> > > that is a distribution of matter, energy, or both.
> >
> >This would correspond to 'Object' in the merged ontology,
> which is a direct
> >subclass of 'Physical'.
>
> I think that merged-ont'Object' would be too restrictive. For
> example, 'the pope from 1400 to 1700' could be a (single)
> PhysicalObject, but it would have to be a lot of distinct m-oObjects.
The pope from 1400 to 1700 would be a single physical object? Maybe
philosophers like to speak this way, but I think it flies in the face of
common usage and common sense. I would say that your "object" is either a
series of physical objects (namely, the people who occupied this role in
this time frame) or it's the temporally qualified role between a person and
the Catholic Church.
> > >
> > > Functional Physical Object
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all physical
> > > objects that have functional, but need not have material
> > > continuity, e.g. the Chairman of Shell.
> >
> >I'm somewhat confused by your example. It seems to me that
> the concept
> >"Chairman of Shell" can be understood in two different ways,
> either as the
> >class of all people who have assumed this role or as the person who
> >currently holds this title.
>
> I think neither of these is intended. The point is that the
> chairmanship (like the US presidency, various categories of royalty,
> etc.) is temporally continuous and always identified with a single
> person at a time. It cannot be identified either with a person or
> with a set. It is a distinct category with its own rules (as in 'the
> king is dead: long live the king!') Restricting yourself to people
> and sets is too limiting: there are more kinds of thing in the world
> than just those two.
I disagree that "Chairman of Shell" is a distinct category. I would say
that it's a binary relation between a person and the Shell Corporation. If
we're interpreting relations extensionally, then it's ultimately a set of
2-tuples.
> > > Stream
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all physical
> > > objects that is material or energy moving along a path, e.g.
> > > a traffic stream flowing on the freeway, some liquid flowing
> > > in a pipe.
> >
> >This is a definite gap in the merged ontology, and I would
> welcome any
> >contributions towards filling it.
>
> Well, I did discuss an ontology of liquids a few years ago at some
> length, using a 4-d ontology and focussing on boundary conditions.
> There is also a fairly detailed set of axioms in CYC.
If you have a write-up of the ontology of liquids, could you pass it my way?
>
> > >
> > > Temporal Boundary
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all individuals
> > > that have a zero temporal extent.
> >
> >It sounds like "Temporal Boundary" corresponds to the class
> of 'Abstract',
>
> That seems clearly wrong. Abstract things don't have a temporal
> location, but temporal boundaries do.
OK, this goes back to my earlier confusion about "zero temporal extent"
versus "non-temporal".
> > > Point in Time
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all temporal
> > > boundaries that are across all space, e.g. 3pm 20th February
> > > 2001 UTC.
> >
> >The definitions for the functions corresponding to the
> concepts of year,
> >month, day, hour, second, etc. are covered at the end of the section
> >"Temporal Definitions/Axioms" of the merged ontology.
>
> Yes, but is there a single class for them all? And is there a class
> of all timepoints?
There are three classes: 'TimeMeasure-Position', 'TimeMeasure-Duration',
and 'TimePoint'. A fully specified date would be an instance of the former
class, a range between two dates would be an instance of the second class,
and the third class ('TimePoint') is a subclass of the first class
('TimeMeasure-Position').
>
> > >
> > > Event
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all temporal
> > > boundaries that mark the beginning or end of some state.
> >
> >This corresponds to the concept of 'DiscreteProcess' in the
> merged ontology,
>
> I disagree. There is nothing in the notion of 'event' which requires
> the event to be a discreteProcess. Continuously changing events may
> also have beginning and ending states.
Can you give me an example of something you would regard as a continuously
changing event?
> > >
> > > Collection
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all things that
> > > have members.
> >
> >These axioms and relations are covered in the new,
> provisional section "Set
> >Theory" of the merged ontology. I say "provisional", because SUO
> >participants haven't seen this stuff before, and it is subject to
> >revision/rejection.
>
> But not all collections are sets, as has been recently
> extensively discussed.
It depends on your definitions of these terms, as has also been recently
extensively discussed. In the merged ontology, there is currently no notion
of collection (on your usage of the term), but this is something that will
have to be included at some point.
>
> > >
> > > Class
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all collections
> > > to which we attach significance.
> >
> >In other words, by "Class" you mean a set that forms a natural kind?
>
> Ian, what do YOU mean by 'natural kind'? Do you expect that there
> will ever be a logical definiton of this concept?
I'm not sure what you mean by "logical definition", and let's disabuse
ourselves right now of the notion that philosophically enlightened
scientists and other respectable members of society use a concept only when
they can provide a "logical definition". Theoretically grounded and
practically indispensable concepts like gravity, utterance, organism, etc.
don't have associated with them necessary and sufficient conditions framed
in terms of conceptual primitives. Although I can't give you a "logical
definition" of 'natural kind', I think I can explain what I mean by this
term. It covers sets of things that we (as a culture) regard as belonging
together.
> >
> > >
> > > Class of Individual
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all classes that
> > > have only individuals as members, e.g. pump, car.
>
> ? Wha? This seems to say that there is only one pump and only one
> car, but I can't beleive that is what was intended. On the other hand
> I have no idea what WAS intended. (What would be an example of a
> class which wasn't a class of individuals?)
>
> >One idea that strikes me is that we could make 'Class' a
> direct subclass of
> >'Set'.
>
> Unfortunately this is exactly the opposite usage from that used
> throughout mathematics, where every set is a class but not vice
> versa. (Using a different sense of 'class', however.)
>
> > This would allow us to apply all of the set-theoretic
> >definitions/axioms to classes, as well as sets. This isn't
> the way things
> >are currently structured in the ontology (currently, 'Set'
> and 'Class' are
> >disjoint siblings of the parent class 'SetOrClass'), but it may be a
> >convenient way of reusing the set-theoretic apparatus in the
> context of
> >intensional classes.
>
> What do you mean by an 'intensional class' ? Sets are extensional by
> definition.
Right, sets themselves are extensional. But one could think of classes as
being sets that are associated with a conjunction of properties, viz. the
properties which are required for membership in the set.
>
> > >
> > > Quantifiable Property
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all Class of
> > > Individual that can be mapped to a number and unit of measure.
> >
> >This is covered in the section "Quantities and Units of
> Measure" in the
> >merged ontology. The key concept in the section is the function
> >'MeasureFn', which is defined as follows:
> >
> >(instance-of MeasureFn BinaryFunction)
> >(nth-domain MeasureFn 1 RealNumber)
> >(nth-domain MeasureFn 2 Unit-Of-Measure)
> >(range MeasureFn Measure)
> >(documentation MeasureFn "This function maps a real number
> and a unit of
> >measure
> >to that number of units.")
>
> Not all measures can be multiplied by real numbers, so this will need
> to be modified to be fully general. Also, what is a 'unit-of-measure'
> ? There seems to be something wrong with this definition. If the
> unit-of-measure defines the 'units' involved, then we do not also
> need to have a special measure function to tell us what we are
> measuring. So for example if we multiply one INCH by three we get
> three INCHES automatically. All we need is the unit and normal
> multiplication.
Well, this is a nonstandard application of the multiplication operator,
since one of its arguments is a unit-of-measure rather than a real number.
So I guess we have a choice between adopting this nonstandard usage or
defining a special function. To my mind, things would be clearer if we took
the latter course. As for your point that not all measures can be
"multiplied" by real numbers, I agree. The Ontolingua ontologies partition
physical quantities into two classes: constant quantities and function
quantities. If we require that the unit-of-measure relate to a constant
quantity, then I think we can avoid the sort of problem you're indicating.
>
> Jerry Hobbs has a very nice general theory of measuring
> scales, by the way.
Again, a pointer would be appreciated.
> > > Status
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all classes that
> > > are characteristics or qualities that is described by discrete,
> > > unordered values.
> >
> >I agree that this is an important category, and it is also a
> gap in the
> >current version of the merged ontology.
>
> I have no clear idea what you guys are agreeing on. Can anyone give a
> couple of examples of what this means?
Well, I can say what I was agreeing to - I'll let Matthew speak for himself.
I was agreeing that there should be a category for what we ordinarily regard
as qualities or attributes, e.g. color, texture, shape, etc.
> > >
> > > Temporal Sequence
> > >
> > > Contains axioms and relations that apply to all relations that
> > > indicate that one individual (i.e. its whole spatio-temporal
> > > extent) precedes another.
> >
> >We do have a calculus of time intervals and their relations
> in the "Temporal
> >Definitions/Axioms" section of the merged ontology, and I
> think we could
> >reuse this calculus to talk about the temporal relations
> between individuals
> >if we defined a function that maps individuals to the time
> interval during
> >which they exist, e.g. as follows:
> >
> >(instance-of TimeIntervalAbstractionFn UnaryFunction)
> >(nth-domain TimeIntervalAbstractionFn 1 Object)
> (range TimeIntervalAbstractionFn TimeInterval)
>
> I'd suggest a less barabaric name might be 'when' (and a similar
> function from things to their locations called 'where')
OK, this sounds like a good name, and I like the idea of a function from
things to their locations. Note though that the two functions won't be
exactly analogous, since the locative function will require an extra
argument, viz. a point in time or a time interval.
> > > 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/
> > > ============================================
> > >
> >
> >
> >Attachment converted: Betelgeuse:Merge.txt 2 (TEXT/MSWD) (0002EF4A)
>
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