Re: [ontolog-forum] Re Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping

["Christopher Spottiswoode" <cms@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John,    (01)

Here you explain (I believe) some notion of minimum ontological commitment:    (02)

> 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.    (03)

You conclude that post with this:    (04)

> I was trying to avoid any interpretation of any kind.    (05)

In your following post you finally exemplify that notion:    (06)

> For example, the relation (red p) says that a pattern of redness is observed
> at point p.  Similarly, (frog p) merely says that a pattern of frogness is
> observed at point p.  It does not make any assumption about the existence of
> entities of type frog.    (07)

I'm afraid I have great difficulty in giving any sense to "a pattern of redness"
or "a pattern of frogness" without any notion of individual (or entity, for that
matter, which you also claimed to have dispensed with in your example of a very
simple ontology).    (08)

Do such attempts at ontology super-abstraction really get us anywhere?  They do
not seem to me to be meaningful, helpful or necessary.  (Certainly, for my part,
individual or entity are amongst the most primitive possible of any set of
primitive or otherwise undefined ontological concepts.)    (09)

Christopher    (010)



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