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Re: [ontolog-forum] Spatial Extent of Abstract Entities?

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 28 May 2013 11:17:30 -0400
Message-id: <51A4CA8A.3000302@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Pat and Doug,    (01)

PC
> The main point of my question was to inquire whether any other
> ontology user has found a practical use for specifying the spatial
> location of abstract entities, since this seems to have been one
> subthread in the parent thread for this thread.    (02)

The point I was trying to make is that anything that requires time
and space coordinates is physical.  It may involve some or many
abstractions in its definition, and those abstractions may be the
most significant parts.    (03)

Doug's example of 'cultural work' is an example.  The text,
image, or shape that results from the process is the goal.
But an identification of the work by reference to a particular
production or publication is a reference to a physical process.    (04)

DF
>> If an author forgets a work, but goes through the same process as
>> before to regenerate the work, would you consider the regenerated
>> work the "same individual"?    (05)

PC
> No, unless the author, in recreating the work is actually prodding
> him/herself to remember what was in the original, in which case it is
> a remembering of what already exists.  This difference may well be
> indeterminate, even to the author.    (06)

This is just one example of the many thorny problems.  I suggest
that you define 'cultural work' to include the process that may
produce multiple tokens of several closely related types.    (07)

Many authors who had their original manuscripts destroyed or lost
later recreated a very similar manuscript.  I suggest that the
term 'cultural work' include the process that generates a family
of one or more closely related versions that lead to one token
whose type is considered definitive.    (08)

Ballet, for example, is an art form that originated in 15th century
Italy and reached its "classic" form in France under Louis XVI.
Long before the 20th c, multiple performances of "the same" ballet
were produced by the same choreographer and cast.  Some were copied
by rivals or by students of the original choreographer.    (09)

For a particular ballet, which token is definitive?  The first
public performance?  One of the many practice sessions?
One of the later, more highly polished and perfected public
performances?  A much later film recording?    (010)

These questions can be clarified by treating every cultural work
as a process that produces one or more related types, any of which
may have multiple tokens.  The policy for determining which type
is definitive is a social convention that may vary for different
art forms and methods for producing tokens.    (011)

John    (012)

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