Re: ONT RE: Ontology case study
On 5/31/02 4:06, "West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE" <Matthew.R.West@IS.shell.com>
wrote:
> MW: This is one of the primary reasons for adopting a 4D ontology.
> Temporal reasoning becomes quite straight forward.
How so, Matthew. All you do is swap a problem of dealing with time-indexed
relations for one of mereological relations.
For someone who calls out frequently for a practical outlook in ontology,
there can be no more practical move than to keep the 3D ontology for
"substances" (objects) and the 4D for "moments" (processes) - this is
basically the split advocated by Peter Simons, Barry Smith, and others.
Those who want exclusively a 3D or 4D view make things hard for themselves.
There seem to be both - related by dependence.
.bill