Dear John, (01)
That does not really help. (02)
> JFS> Translations to CLIF using the above ontology:
> >
> > at t1, Kermit egg.
> >
> > (exists (p t1) (and (namedEntity p "Kermit") (egg p) (coord 4
> t1)))
> >
> > at t2, Kermit tadpole
> >
> > (exists (p t2) (and (namedEntity p "Kermit") (tadpole p) (coord 4
> t2))).
> >
> > at t3, Kermit frog.
> >
> > (exists (p t3) (and (namedEntity p "Kermit") (frog p) (coord 4
> t3)))
> >
> > I claim that these observations can be used in either a 3D or a 4D
> > theory.
>
> MW> Yes, but they are not terribly useful. What I am missing is whether
> > these observations are about the same egg/frogspawn/frog or
> different
> > ones that just happen to be named Kermit.
>
> That is indeed a good question.
>
> MW> What I would expect to see is some relation that affirmed this.
>
> One approach would be to add another relation with suitable axioms:
>
> (uniqueName "Kermit") (03)
MW: Now the problem is that there is not one thing that was seen at all
three times (from a 4D perspective). From a 4D perspective what was seen
were three different things that are states of a fourth. (04)
Kermit would presumably be the whole life object, egg, tadpole and frog. Now
if Kermit is an egg, and you are referring to the whole life object, then
you are saying that the whole life object is an egg, and if when you say
Kermit is a tadpole, you are saying the whole life object is a tadpole, and
when you say Kermit is a frog... So you are saying that Kermit at all stages
of his life is an egg, a tadpole and a frog. Probably not the intention. (05)
Now I can create a mapping from what you have said above to a 4D equivalent,
but this is much the same as the mapping from 3D to 4D (since your
statements above are essentially 3D) and seems to me to defeat the objective
of making underspecified statements that only need some additional axioms to
make them 3D or 4D. (06)
A possible approach would be not to attempt to name the objects, but to
introduce another relation => and a 4th object, Kermit. => would mean
temporal part of in 4D and identity in 3D. (07)
(exists (p1 t1) (egg p1))
(exists (p2 t2) (tadpole p2))
(exists (p3 t3) (frog p3))
(namedentity p4 "Kermit")
(=> p1 p4)
(=> p2 p4)
(=> p3 p4) (08)
What is clear here is that in writing things in a neutral way you have to
remove even more of the assumptions we ordinarily make than you would
expect. (09)
Regards (010)
Matthew West
Information Junction
Tel: +44 560 302 3685
Mobile: +44 750 3385279
matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/ (011)
This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales No. 6632177.
Registered office: 2 Brookside, Meadow Way, Letchworth Garden City,
Hertfordshire, SG6 3JE. (012)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (013)
|