John, (01)
I think it may be useful to try and get to the bottom of this employee -
person discussion. (02)
In business systems it is often necessary to distinguish between the 'role'
someone plays, whether more general, such as employee, or more specific,
such as FX Dealer in order to carry out the business processes. (03)
To understand, think in terms of rights and responsibilities. The employee
has one's that the person does not, the FX Dealer has one's that other
employees do not. An obvious example of this enshrined in law is the legal
notion 'Constitution Sole' introduced to deal with the rights /
responsibilities of Monarch's - and the idea that they can act in and ex
officio. (04)
What is key here is that the role is the subject of rights and
responsibilities. (05)
So, a simple example. When the FX Dealer executes a trade he can do it in or
ex officio - but in order to process the deal, this must be clearly marked.
It makes a difference whether she/he or her/his employer is going to settle
the deal. (06)
Also, these rights and responsibilities track the employee (FX Dealer)
through time, but NOT the person. While still employed as an FX Dealer, the
FX dealer is responsible for the portfolio. But when he resigns, he/she is
no longer responsible. Hence, the person was never responsible. (07)
Hence, it does not make sense to think, as you seem to suggest in your mail
that, at a point in time, employees are a subtype of person - without also
giving some explanation about what happens over time - and how an employee
at a point in time can act ex officio as a person and not an employee. (08)
In my experience of re-engineering legacy systems, the systems have handled
the aspects of this that it has needed to - though the distinction has not
always been obvious on the surface data structures. (09)
Regards,
Chris (010)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: 18 March 2007 19:02
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology and methodology (011)
Peter, (012)
My original example did not mention mules. So I don't
understand why you objected to saying that every
employee is a person. (013)
> ... if a mule can be considered as a person, then something
> is seriously out of kilter. (014)
This gets into the question of what a person is. The word
"persona" in Latin was used for the masks worn by actors
on the Roman stage. The persona was the mask through
which the sound (sonum) of the actor's voice was amplified.
By metonymy, "persona" was applied to the actor, and then
to any human being who plays any role in life, not just
on a stage. (015)
> Your modeler is no longer modeling the real world but
> attempting to re-create the world to fit his/her model. (016)
I offered two options for representing that situation:
(1) redefine Employee as a subtype of Animal, or (2)
broaden the notion of person. Take your pick. (017)
> Facts change over time, so do roles. Laws do not. (018)
Different laws have different levels of entrenchment,
and the definitions of words are much less stable than
the laws of physics. See persona -> person, for example. (019)
> The issue for me is not about the rights and wrongs of logic.
> It is about the good and the bad of modeling practices. (020)
I'm all in favor of good modeling practices. The most
important is to be faithful to the domain (i.e., that aspect
of the world that is being modeled). Another is to avoid
confusion by using words in their normal meanings. (021)
But as circumstances change, the meanings change. In the
first half of the 20th century, the word "computer" meant
"somebody who carries out a computation." But now, it almost
always means "some thing that carries out a computation." (022)
John (023)
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