RE: ONT RE: Ontology case study
Hold on Bill,
It is true that you need to synchronise the way you deal with qualitative
change and component change. Your decisions in both areas need to mesh - but
this is not a problem. Or maybe I should say what is the 4D problem with
mereological changes that you see?
The issue for me is how much complexity you want to manage. 3D adds to the
complexity as you have extra things to synchronise. Barry's half-way house
still retains the complexity - in fact, increases it. He may argue that the
trade-offs make it worthwhile - but that is a different argument.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org
[mailto:owner-ontology@majordomo.ieee.org]On Behalf Of Bill Andersen
Sent: 31 May 2002 17:18
To: West, Matthew R SITI-ITPSIE; SUO Ontology
Subject: 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