Duane,
Sure, but “primitive” is a
frame of reference. Are polar or Cartesian the “primitive”? the
fact is, either one will do and you can derive one from the other. So it is
just fine for one system to choose polar and the other Cartesian and we can
relate these easily. We don’t even have to “agree” that one
is more primitive than the other, just that we have related concepts –
reaching consensus is not required.
For a concept system like Pat is talking
about we can apply the same principle – as long as Pat has a useful
primitive set (and it gets used), it can become the “hub” of many
other ontologies. This does not require that this be the one and only hub, only
that it is useful and is successfully used to define the other concepts. Allowing
for “multiple hubs” can take some of the “religion” out
of the arguments and allow for the development of useful hub ontologies that
may eventual converge or may remain distinct. Multiple hubs allow allows for
the inevitable refactoring as we better understand different viewpoints.
-Cory Casanave
From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Duane Nickull
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010
2:54 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
Foundation Ontology Primitives
Inline:
On 2/2/10 11:43 AM, "Matthew West" <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I hope that it will not actually be necessary
to try to precisely
> define
> the borderline between primitive and non-primitive.
A concept is primitive if it cannot be completely defined in terms of
concepts you already have defined.
Most OO programming languages are structured this way. If there is any
way to build such a concept with another class, then refactoring is often used.
Take drawing primitives as an example. There is one base primitive which
might be “coordinate”. This corresponds to a specific X,Y
pair. This is abstract so at this point it ignores all pixel resolutions
etc but could generally taken to be based on a pixel grid.
The next level down would be some primitive shapes. Candidates might be
Line, Circle, Ellipse, Rectangle, Square etc. On closer examination,
circle can be stated to be a specialized type of ellipse (one with a constant radius
value) and a square can be declared as a specialized type of rectangle (one
with equal side lengths within a fixed unit of precision, usually the pixel
resolution when implemented). Line might also be a candidate for
rectangle (a rectangle with height:width ratio exceeding certain limits) but
lines could also carry the added property of an arc or path. Therefore
the true primitives might be coordinate (or point), line, ellipse and
rectangle. This represents a context of pixelated screens however. In
vector graphics (SVG et al) the primitives may be different.
A triangle then presents a test. Is it another primitive of is it a
specialized type of one of the existing graphic primitives. One could
create another primitive called “fill” that takes parameters of a
“boundary” expressed in terms of lines. This could then make
up all other shapes such as polygon, triangle, star, etc..
Duane
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