Re: [ontolog-forum] Binary versus N-ary relations

[William Frank <williamf.frank@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 12:34 PM, doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, September 6, 2012 06:40, Andries van Renssen wrote:

 

> AR: All occurrences (activities, processes and events) are basically higher
> arity relations (interactions between things).

DF: I would disagree.  Occurrences are first class objects.  Higher (or not)
arity relations can describe aspects of such occurrences.

nothing “really is” a class or an object or an association.   All modeling is also design. 

 

In my example, I said, “there exists an instance b of the between relation B”

This means that b is an individual thing.  (to be is to be the value of a bound variable_).

in higher order logic, which is often how people think, also every relation IS a thing.  (for all relations R, ....)

modeling categories you and others choose are not what something “really is”; you are imposing your own form, casting the concept as a category of thing) for your own good purposes.  Good casting into a model element type depends on your viewpoint and purpose. 

For example, a given ‘thing’, like the book Moby Dick, can be cast in several ways, from different viewpoints, and for different purposes.   It is an individual instance,  of the type ‘novel’;  it is a class of editions, each of which is an individual edition; each edition is a class of copies of that edition, which are then the individual things; and each "copy" is 'really' a class of observations in an identity equivelence class relation with each other.  And, each observation ...... Yet, it would be silly to do all of this in one sitting.  Take a viewpoint and a purpose, and then the 'things' you see pop out.

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