Pat: (01)
This is great stuff. Now I am going to think out loud even more and play
devil's advocate. How do you define liquid? Glass is also a liquid. If you
watch a sheet of glass over 1000 years it will appear to flow like it is a
gel. Would sand not model the same characteristics of a liquid, albeit the
particles on a much larger scale? If flows, it is subject to the same laws
of physics and offers many of the same properties except maybe having a
higher viscosity index value. (02)
Wordnet struggled with the following definitions: (03)
# existing as or having characteristics of a liquid; especially tending to
flow; "water and milk and blood are liquid substances"
# filled or brimming with tears; "swimming eyes"; "sorrow made the eyes of
many grow liquid"
# clear and bright; "the liquid air of a spring morning"; "eyes shining with
a liquid luster"; "limpid blue eyes"
# a substance that is liquid at room temperature and pressure
# melted: changed from a solid to a liquid state; "rivers filled to
overflowing by melted snow"
# smooth and flowing in quality; entirely free of harshness; "the liquid
song of a robin"
# the state in which a substance exhibits a characteristic readiness to flow
with little or no tendency to disperse and relatively high incompressibility
# a substance in the fluid state of matter having no fixed shape but a fixed
volume
# fluent: smooth and unconstrained in movement; "a long, smooth stride";
"the fluid motion of a cat"; "the liquid grace of a ballerina"
# fluid: in cash or easily convertible to cash; "liquid (or fluid) assets"
# a frictionless continuant that is not a nasal consonant (especially `l'
and `r') (04)
Duane (05)
On 2/15/07 1:40 PM, "Pat Hayes" <phayes@xxxxxxx> wrote: (06)
>> *mild digression from discourse*
>>
>> Water is a good example of natural reality, so real yet so versatile
>> yet so elusive
>
> Indeed. I made an attempt at this a while back
> (Ontology of liquids, 1985). I found I had to
> distinguish between a 'piece of liquid' (roughly
> a particular set of molecules) and a 'liquid
> object' which is defined essentially by its
> spatial boundaries. Like a river, for example,
> which is the same liquid object but a different
> piece of liquid every moment. (I was living in
> Geneva at the time, so my example was Lac Leman,
> which has the Rhone flowing in one end and out
> other, and in spring changes color completely in
> two days or so, so evidently is a very different
> piece of liquid.) The fact the geographic volumes
> of water apparently are individuated in the
> second way, spatially, may account for why it
> seems natural to refer to a river even when it
> has no water in it, like a Wadi or wash.
>
>> Maybe, a river is always a river if thats what you call that kind of
>> thing,(define) but it has different states.(river can be rivololet,
>> or stream, eventually even steam - probably the reverse is true).
>>
>> The states depend on different conditions of the air.atmosphere,
>> temperature.earth, and the natural cycles.
>>
>> Then again, if we want to define river and all its
>> properties/transformations/states, we should really not forget to take
>> a step back. River is water, water is Ho2,. So the river is just a
>> state of some gas combination.
>
> You have to distinguish chemical composition from
> massing together in a body from physical mixing,
> they are all kinds of combination.
>
>>
>> Model that?
>>
>> Depends, if it's the ontology for a mapping system, then it's a
>> particular state that we
>> are interested in modelling, although any representation is likely to
>> be an approximation
>> of what ther river in any given time/space coordinate
>
> Indeed. Again, we have developed a semantics for
> maps which makes this very clear, because if you
> 'back-project' eg a river line on the map to the
> terrain using the inverse of the projection
> function, it is often very much wider than the
> actual river. So you have to say that the
> semantics of the map is not that the line shows
> the actual position of the river, but that it
> *constrains* the actual position (ie the real
> position is 'inside' the back-projection). And
> then for example a road shown going to a town on
> the map could actually miss that town (there is
> enough 'room' for this to be possible) , unless
> we add a special map-interpretation convention
> which says that some kinds of coincidence on the
> map really do mean coincidence in the world.
>
>> If the ontology is to map geophysical resources from the region, then
>> maybe the representation can be more granular -
>>
>> depending what one is interested in modelling obviously, waht
>> definition and representation
>> one choses, however, we should keepin mind that
>> nothing is in a permanent state,
>> and the state of everything is correlated by its dependencies, and
>> dependencies are bound by some cycles.and laws, even they appear
>> chaotic at times, I guess
>>
>> Model that in the ontology.
>
> Hmm, that sounds like a philosophical position in
> metaphysics. Im not sure if we should try to
> model those in ontologies.
>
> Pat
>
>>
>> just thinking lound
>
> Great, we should all do more of it.
>
>>
>> *digression ends*
>>
>>
>> Paola DM
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/15/07, Kathryn Blackmond Laskey <klaskey@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>> As a matter of fact, a river IS always a river:
>>>> this is a necessary truth.
>>>
>>> Except when it's a stream, or a brook, or a rivulet.
>>>
>>> There is flowing water (well, today it may be frozen; last week, it
>>> was flowing) that passes under a bridge I drive over on the way from
>>> my home to GMU. Whether that something is a river or a stream or a
>>> creek, is open to endless debate. I agree that it is what it is, but
>>> is it always a river? Always not a river? I don't think that
>>> question has a definite answer.
>>>
>>> Kathy
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> ************************************
>> Paola Di Maio
>> Senior Lecturer
>> School of IT, MFU.ac.th
>> *************************************
>>
>> "For as long as space and time endures
>> may I too abide to dispel misery and ignorance"
>>
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> (07)
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