Barry and Pat, (01)
> >>> I just choose (like driving on the left). I choose to distinguish
>>>>between continuants and occurrents.
>>>
>>>Fine. But then the question arises as to whether your ontological
>>>framework, which requires this distinction, is of more use than a
>>>similar one which does not.
>>
>>I think we need to test this empirically. So far we are winning --
> >the GO is, by several measures,the world's most successful ontology.
>
>Ah, that is more like it. I agree you are winning. And it is
>refreshing to see philosophical arguments replaced by straightforward
>appeals to power and funding. As I have no funds to compete with, you
>will no doubt go on winning :-) (02)
I hope you boys have fun slugging it out on the playground. :-) In
the meantime, people are going to build ontologies, and they are
going to look to us for leadership on how to do it. Barry's legions
are busy building them with continuants and occurants. Pat doesn't
have any funding, he says. So he can't amass legions who will build
ontologies with spatiotemporal processes. Alas. But no doubt
someone will read his posts, and with dreams of matching Barry's
glory, start amassing armies to build them with spatiotemporal
processes. Then, some day, somebody is going to have an urgently
important problem that requires these ontologies to interoperate.
Maybe a spatiotemporal ontology for an adoption registry is going to
have to interoperate with the gene ontology in order to establish
genetic lineage of adopted persons. Perhaps the life of someone with
a rare genetic disease will depend on this working. Or perhaps we
will need the gene ontology to interact with the spatiotemporal
ontology of a counterterrorism system in order to link up forensic
DNA evidence with terrorist social networks. The lives of tens of
thousands of people threatened by a dirty bomb in a major city may
depend on getting the interoperation to work. (03)
Science has always worked this way. The boys on the playground slug
it out, and it looks as if first one and then the other is winning,
and eventually history decides, often on something neither of them
anticipated. Until history renders its verdict, we need to allow a
plurality of formalisms. That means we have to be able to make them
interoperate. That means we need to understand how to translate
between the formalisms. Which is what Pat has volunteered to do with
a continuant-occurrent ontology. (04)
Kathy (05)
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