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To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:00:51 -0000
Message-id: <4977a931.0856100a.7292.ffff9078@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dear Pat,    (01)

<snip>
> > Pat
> > Hayes cannot have members, whereas the class of Welshmen can and
> does.
> 
> It is natural at first blush, but it gets quite hard to keep it up for
> an extended length of time. For example, one way to reconcile the
> temporal fights is to introduce the notion of a series of time-
> snapshots of a 4D entity, this being the nearest thing in the 4D world
> to a 3D continuant. If you do that to (the 4-D) Pat Hayes, then I
> become the set of my instantaneous snapshots. Now, I am quite happy to
> be thought of this way, and it is sometimes very useful. But if we
> have a logically rigid distinction between things with members and
> things without, then this violates a fundamental partitioning of the
> universe. LIke the continuant/occurrent distinction, this dichotomy
> seems natural but in fact just gets in the way when one gets down to
> serious ontology engineering. One of the great merits of the CL
> absolute type freedom is that it imposes no a priori logical obstacles
> to such re-conceptualizations of entities.    (02)

[MW] Whilst acknowledging of course that the set of your 4D slices is a
valid object, I would have hoped you would have seen yourself as the
aggregate (and hence still a 4D extent) of them rather than as an abstract
set.    (03)

Regards    (04)

Matthew West
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/     (05)



> 
> Pat    (06)


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