Sean, (01)
I'm not sure about that point, (02)
> To summarise my last message, might one say "In engineering,
> configuration management provides a metaphysics for continuants"?
> That is, it defines the process of coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be
> for engineering parts and assemblies. (03)
But I am certain of the following: (04)
Every software system for design, development, configuration
management, etc., presupposes some metaphysics. (05)
The reason why I hesitate to endorse your statement is that various
people who develop ontologies that use the terms 'continuant' and
'occurrent' or terms like 'coming-to-be' and 'ceasing-to-be' tend
to use different axioms and definitions. (06)
The definitions are usually similar enough that the differences
don't matter much for 99% of the statements. But when you have
a program with 100,000 lines of code, a thousand tiny differences
may cause a thousand bugs. (07)
For example, when something comes to be or ceases to be, does the
change occur in an instant? Or does the change take place by
some continuous process? Or by a series of discrete steps?
And during the change, what happens if another process interacts
or tries to interact with the entity that is changing? (08)
John (09)
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