Dear Matthew, (01)
The very simple ontology I gave did not have a notion of individual,
nor did it have a notion of object or stage. I only used it to
record observations. Doug F. proposed the use of a variable e that
would represent some entity that was common to all of them. But my
original ontology didn't include any way to refer to what might be
common or how it might be characterized. (02)
JFS>> 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)
That is a 4D way of talking. But the ontology I proposed didn't have
any notion of thing or state. (05)
MW> 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. (06)
That very simple ontology was an attempt to avoid as many intentions
as possible. It didn't have a notion of life, object, or stage. (07)
MW> 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. (08)
I certainly agree. I was trying to avoid any implications or
expectations of any kind. That very simple ontology didn't
even have a way of saying "Kermit is a frog." Note the
following statement: (09)
(exists (p t3) (and (namedEntity p "Kermit") (frog p) (coord 4 t3))) (010)
This says that there exists a 4D point p, whose fourth coordinate is t3.
At that point p, the relation (frog p) and (namedEntity p "Kermit") are
both true. But this statement does not imply that there exist such
things as entities. It also avoids saying that there are things
called frogs. It merely says that the monadic relation named 'frog'
happens to be true at the same point p where the relation between
p and the string "Kermit" happens to be true. (011)
One could gather up all those observation statements and put them in
the tables of a relational database or in RDF triples. Then different
people with different intentions, expectations, and speech patterns
might interpret that data in their own way. (012)
But I was trying to avoid any interpretation of any kind. (013)
John (014)
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