Dear Pat,
It seems to me you are saying that the data elements that you need to talk
about what is true at a time and change over time are the same for the
different views of how the world is. I agree. If you are to provide an
adequate description of however the world is from different view points, I
think that must be so even. If not the different views would not work, and
would be dismissed. The problem is that the different views are workable,
rather than demonstrably wrong.
However, I don't think that a data format that obfuscates the different
views helps. It does not make the different views the same somehow, it just
demonstrates some level of equivalence. Equivalence is not the same as
compatibility. (01)
Regards (02)
Matthew West
Information Junction
Mobile: +44 750 3385279
Skype: dr.matthew.west
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Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire,
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-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Pat Hayes
Sent: 16 March 2015 18:39
To: rrovetto@xxxxxxxxxxx; [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Endurantism and Perdurantism - Re: Some
Comments on Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Ontologies (04)
Greetings. (05)
I have read, thought and occassionally written on this topic (of how to
describe real things involved with time and change) for many years. I have
come to think that much of the problem arises from a rather uninspiring but
very real problem, which is the expressive limitations imposed on
first-order descriptions (and hence, via Quine's dictum, on the ontologies
implied by those theories) by traditional syntactic limitations of
first-order syntax. These have been eliminated in ISO Common Logic by
allowing first-order quantification over all entities, including relations,
and by allowing relations (and functions) to be variadic. This allows one to
write axioms to 'convert' between formal styles of temporal description. For
example (06)
(forall ((x PhysicalThing)(t Time) c) (iff (c x t)(c (x t)) )) (07)
which says that a property of continuants holds at a time t just when the
corresponding property of occurrents is true of the t-slice of the
continuant. I know, of course, that philosophical doctrine prohibits taking
a time-slice of an occurrent: but the fact that (as Matthew points out)
these classifications refer to the exact same physical entities motivates
using the same name for (for example) me and my lifetime, and for the simple
property and its fluent variation with a temporal parameter. (08)
Obviously this is oversimplified, but perhaps you get the idea. The basic
point, in any case, is that this entire discussion is made easier to handle
if the underlying formal language is truly ontologically neutral, rather
than imposing its own subtle (and familiar, perhaps) restrictions on what
can be said about various 'kinds' of 'thing' (such as the conventional FO
syntax not allowing properties and relations into the universe of discourse,
and requiring them to have a fixed number of arguments). (09)
Once this syntactic freedom is available, the various disputes about
different styles of temporal ontology (3-D versus 4-D, etc.) can be seen
simply as debates about the appropriate syntactic location for temporal
arguments, ie about where in a timeless sentence to add the temporal
parameter. Does one express (P x) + t as a temporal index added to a
sentence (TRUE[t] (P x) ) giving a temporally-indexed modal language, where
time is considered as a parameter of truth, or as an argument to relations
(P x t) giving a 3-d view of continuant entities with time-varying
properties, or as an argument to individual names, now treated as temporal
functions (P (x t)) giving a 4-d view of occurrent entities which have
temporal slices or parts? Or perhaps a judicious mix of these. In the usual
FOL syntax, these last two are sharply incompatible, since for example P has
one argument in one of them but two in the other, and x is a name in one but
a function in the other. So one is obliged to chose, or impose a careful,
rigid, discipline on how names are used. But this is merely an artifact of
the syntactic rigidity of traitional FO notations, and this rigidity has no
foundational basis, and can easily (almost trivially) be side-stepped. (010)
In ISO-CL, *all* of these various syntactic patterns can co-exist, with the
same names used for the entities and all their relations no matter where the
argument is located (so that the enduring, timeless PatHayes is the exact
same entity as the PatHayes which can be sliced by taking a temporal
argument in terms such as (PatHayes 1966), used in sentences such as
(Undergraduate (PatHayes 1963)) which refers to a section of my past life,
or - which is the *very same* thing - me in the past, since this sentence is
equivalent (using the earlier axiom) to the alternative form (Undergraduate
PatHayes 1963), which treats me as a continuant rather than an occurrent and
treats the relation as a fluent rather than a simple property. But, to
emphasize, in ISO-CL, all the names in these sentences and terms refer to
single entities: the PatHayes which gets timesliced and the PatHayes which
is treated as a continuant are the same, unique referent of the name
"PatHayes" in every CL universe of interpretation. There is no need to keep
a separate accounting of me vs my life, or to write two versions of many
axioms, one in the 'fluent' style and the oher in the '4-d' style, as one
sees throughout the OBO basic ontologies. The division of the universe into
these categories which seems to be so important in many formal ontologies is
simply the result of looking at reality through crooked glasses created by
the traditional (but logically unnecessary) first-order segregated syntax. (011)
Comments? (012)
Pat Hayes (013)
On Mar 15, 2015, at 7:55 PM, <rrovetto@xxxxxxxxxxx> <rrovetto@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote: (014)
> Matthew,
>
> You wrote: [MW>] The problem with combining endurantism with a process (or
purdurantist) approach is that endurantism insists that physical objects
wholly exist at each point in time and pass through time, which means that
in particular that they do not have temporal parts. On the other hand a
process/purdurantist ontology has physical objects extended in time (like
processes) and hence they have temporal parts. Overcoming that contradiction
is non-trivial without actually changing sides, and the choice between them
is one of the core commitments one has to make.
>
> You've described traditional views of perdurantism, and also what is often
presented as a contradiction. The idea is to develop other more accurate
conceptions of perdurantism/endurantism or some amalgam of the two seemingly
opposing views. I doubt there is reason to make the distinction dogma, and
from my experience it seems it's been accepted as such.
>
> Now, in philosophy, some have questioned the wholly-present aspect,
leading to a view according to which processes are persisting,
wholly-present yet ongoing or unfolding (in no temporally-extended sense)
entities (See Rowland Stout). In the applied side, as Galton et al.
(Waterfall paper) have said "objects are points of stability" in virtue of
processes they or their parts participate in. In my view, these are some
steps to a more accurate ontological description of existents.
>
> I believe traditional endurantism and perdurantism are too rigid and
narrow in themselves, each picking out aspects of the world, but are at
least two sides to the same coin in describing existents. If some are
interested in collaborating on a paper--ideally funded as it is important in
my circumstances--on these topics, contact me privately. As I said, I have
one, but the area needs more work.
>
> FYI: I've added 'Endurantism and Perdurantism' to the subject-line of this
thread, and including the comment by Rich below (because I seem to be
getting separate emails). For those responding further, I encourage
responding with that addition in the subject for reference and consistency
with the topic.
>
>
> Rich Cooper wrote:
> It seems to me that combining the two - object properties and process
properties - would be more realistic than separating them. It has been
common practice to separate them for so long we should at least review the
reasons why we don't, in practice, put them together.
>
>
> In games, the objects go through state changes and also appear to perform
actions. Those would certainly be natural examples we could discuss it that
way. Starships, Klingons, Martians, ray weapons, shields, sick bay, Captain
Kirk, Scotty, the whole cast, the Conn, and all those objects could be used
as examples.
>
>
> But isn't the idea to construct "Scriptive" ontologies, i.e., task
schedules, as stored or calculated, for each object? One purpose of the
historic separation was for partitioning the program, from the data tables,
so that the software could be generalized for use in wider application
domains. But that separation changes the design to ensure that an API for
the scheduler would be distinct from an API to the script tables manager -
SQL or NoSQL. Separating the two subsystems over the years has gradually
made each subsystem more general, more efficient at its subtask, and more
complete in its treatment of the combined System, both software and tables.
>
>
> HTML is an example of scripted layout, and there is an ontology of objects
and operations that can be extracted from the various verbs and nouns in
HTML pages. HTML also separates out the verb parts from the declarative
parts, and the latest version is syntactically closed, so it's hierarchical
and very easy to parse. Yet it still maintains the separation of objects
from processes. Why is that the choice made instead of putting them
together? What would be gained or lost by integrating them?
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Rich Cooper,
>
> Rich Cooper,
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> Dear Robert,
>
>
>
> There is actually a problem here.
>
> Just a quick note on a passage in this helpful thread (not intended to
deviate from the topic at hand, but important all the same)...
>
> MW: "The problem I have with this insistence that
activities/processes/events are disjoint from physical objects is that it
requires two objects for (amongst other things) me, one for me as the
physical object, and another for the activity of my life. I'm with John S.
(and some others) who take a process approach, seeing physical objects as
(relatively) slowly changing processes."
>
> I agree with not being entirely fond of the traditional object-process
distinction as such. To me it does not seem to capture the fluid (so to
speak), processual-yet-persisting aspect of the world. However, one does not
necessarily have to chose either the process-ontology approach or
endurantism. One can think outside of the box and combine qualities of each.
The task would then be to solve whatever philosophical (or other) problems
that arise in doing so. This has been attempted, at least in philosophy. In
fact describing physical objects as slowly changing process is moving toward
that attempt. Anyway, one need not feel confined to the traditional
distinction as if there were no alternatives. One certainly not feel as if
we could not create (or discover) alternatives!
>
> [MW>] The problem with combining endurantism with a process (or
purdurantist) approach is that endurantism insists that physical objects
wholly exist at each point in time and pass through time, which means that
in particular that they do not have temporal parts. On the other hand a
process/purdurantist ontology has physical objects extended in time (like
processes) and hence they have temporal parts. Overcoming that contradiction
is non-trivial without actually changing sides, and the choice between them
is one of the core commitments one has to make.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Matthew West
>
> Information Junction
>
> Mobile: +44 750 3385279
>
> Skype: dr.matthew.west
>
> matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
>
> https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>
> This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales No. 6632177.
>
> Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,
Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Respectfully,
> Robert
>
> On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 10:17 AM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
>
> Dear Thomas,
>
>
>
>
>
> 3/24/15.
>
> To: Ontolog Discussion Group
>
> From: Tom Johnston (new member)
>
> [MW>] Welcome!
>
>
>
> I would like to comment on the current discussion about SMEs and
ontologies.
>
>
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> (note: in the upper-level ontology I developed in my recent book
"Bitemporal Data: Theory and Practice" (Morgan-Kaufmann, 2014), objects and
events divide the world between them; they are exhaustive of what there is,
and nothing is both an object and an event. Objects come into existence,
cease to exist and, while they exist, change from one state to a successive
state by participating in events. I consider this the formalization of an
upper-level folk ontology which is the ontology common to all relational
databases.
>
> [MW>] That is not true, relational technology is neutral in ontological
commitments, except that it requires that tables cannot themselves be
instances of other tables. However, I accept many relational databases adopt
this commitment. The problem I have with this insistence that
activities/processes/events are disjoint from physical objects is that it
requires two objects for (amongst other things) me, one for me as the
physical object, and another for the activity of my life. I'm with John S.
(and some others) who take a process approach, seeing physical objects as
(relatively) slowly changing processes.
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> During the JAD sessions (see below), the initial statement of requirements
will be transformed into a different set of requirements that are not simply
the initial requirements stated in greater detail. The initial set of
objects, events and transformations will be similarly transformed as the BA
helps the SMEs realize (a) ambiguities inherent in their original statement,
(b) generalizations of their requirements that will do what they require but
also additional useful things; (c) restrictions on their requirements
because the current state of technology at the enterprise would make their
satisfaction unacceptably expensive; and (d) a sorting of initial
requirements into do-now and do-later categories, based on dependencies
among the requirements, and on the need to keep the project on-time and
under budget (so both the BA and the SMEs, whose names are most directly
attached to the project, will look good to their bosses when the whole thing
eventually moves into production status).
>
> [MW>] The challenge I find is in validating the requirements (providing
evidence to support them).
>
>
>
> JAD: joint application development (a somewhat outdated term).
>
> [MW>] I think SCRUM is the current incarnation of this.
>
> . Next, a comment on SMEs.
>
>
> It is this: SMEs generally do not know what they are talking about. To
repeat: SMEs generally do not know what they are talking about.
>
> [MW>] John made a similar point, and I agree. I was too polite in my
earlier post. In particular they generally don't know what they don't know.
>
>
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> For anyone familiar with Plato's Socratic dialogues (early and middle
period dialogues), I can make my point like this: SMEs (Gorgias, Meno,
Protagoras, etc.) are the protagonists of Socrates (the BA) in those
dialogues. Those SMEs are the ones who profess to know something - about
knowledge, justice, courage, etc. Socrates engages each of them in a dialog
which always ends with Socrates demonstrating, usually by eliciting a
contradiction from his protagonist, that the SME actually doesn't know what
he claims to know.
>
>
>
> But there is one difference between Socrates and today's BAs. Socrates is
content (pleased, in fact, his protestations to the contrary) to show that
his protagonists don't know what they claim to know. Today's BAs, however,
cannot afford that luxury. Today's BAs must somehow guide her SMEs from
ignorance to knowledge, from vague, ambiguous, incomplete or otherwise
inchoate initial statements of what they want to a final statement which
will mediate between them and the developers who will implement their
requirements.
>
>
>
> One conclusion from all this is that the (ontologically-adept) BA must
take a very active role in eliciting and clarifying definitions of the
objects and events of concern to the enterprise. Her role must not be
tidying up around the edges of what the SMEs initial come up with as a
requirements statement. She must not use a light touch. She must challenge
her SMEs as aggressively as Socrates challenged the self-proclaimed experts
he engaged with.
>
> [MW>] I agree.
>
>
>
> Is there any additional guidance I can suggest, other than these very
general comments?
>
>
>
> There is. I would like to suggest that before we begin eliciting
ontological commitments from SMEs, we should clarify (a) what we are
defining, and (b) what a definition is.
>
>
>
> (3) What are we defining when we ask SMEs for definitions?
>
>
>
> Let's take Customer as an example. In any enterprise, in any JAD session,
with any group of SMEs, when we ask "What is a customer?" (the same "What is
X?" question form as Aristotle's most basic ontological question, ti esti?),
surely we must be asking for something besides a dictionary definition.
>
>
>
> We don't need SMEs to formulate general definitions, whether they are
do-it-yourself dictionary definitions, or definitions defining nodes in a
taxonomy whose linearly parent nodes, up to the root node, have already been
defined. We are asking our SMEs what a customer of our enterprise is, that
is, what a customer of our enterprise in fact is, not what the SMEs think a
customer of our enterprise ideally should be.
>
> [MW>] Yes. When I was talking about an evidence based approach in my
response to John, this is the kind of thing I was meaning.
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> In any relationship of a set and its immediate superset, the immediate
superset defines a universe of discourse from which the members of the set
are chosen by means of that rule. For example, the set Customer will have
(whether represented as such in a database or not) as an immediate superset
the set Party, which we can think of as being the set of all those
individuals or organizations with which our organization engages in some
way.
>
>
>
> This immediately excludes from the universe of discourse for Customer such
things as dogs, cars, and also any persons or groups not able to enter into
a legal agreement (which a customer relationship is). Now, to define what a
customer of our enterprise is, all we need to do is to state the rule which
picks out a subset from that universe of discourse.
>
>
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> To accept a person or organization as a customer is to add a row to the
enterprise's Customer table representing that person or organization.
>
> [MW>] I was once given as a definition of "Customer" "One who is
> recorded in on the Customer table". Accurate, but not actually useful
> J
>
> .a customer of our enterprise is - a subtype of a Party with whom we have
entered into a customer relationship, a relationship subject to conditions
stated in our policy manuals and implemented in our code.
>
>
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> Finding these definitions - which clearly can be done - is doing something
a lot more concrete than talking to a group of SMEs with the objective of
obtaining consensus definitions of such key terms as "customer".
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
>
>
> So we have steered away from the dragon of Wittgensteinian definitions,
and reached the safe fortress of Aristotelian definitions. To wit: the
category Customer (of enterprise X) is represented by a relational table
(hopefully named Customer, or something like it). A relational table is a
set. A set is a collection of set members drawn from a universe of discourse
such that the members of the set satisfy a specific set membership
criterion. That membership criterion is expressed in policy manuals, and in
the rules expressed in code that determine whether or not someone will be
added to the Customer table.
>
> [MW>] <snip>
>
> Prescriptive ontologies come into play, on my view, when our objective is
to construct higher-level ontologies, for example industry-level ontologies.
For these higher-level ontologies to play the role of facilitating semantic
interoperability across those industries, each enterprise subscribing to the
industry-level ontology must realize that their responsibility is not to
simply play lip service to the industry ontology. It is to begin the
difficult work of adjusting their de facto ontologies, including the set
membership rules for the sets represented as tables in their databases, so
that those lower-level ontological categories - the ones corresponding
one-to-one with their database tables, are consistent extensions of those
higher-level ontologies.
>
> [MW>] I've developed this kind of ontology. It is not really quite as you
describe. Generally industry ontologies are about supply chain integration,
so they do not cover all of an enterprises data. What becomes most important
is to identify the subset of the industry model that is relevant to your
slot in the supply chain, and to be sure that you can map your enterprise
model into and out of those parts of the industry model. That has more
flexibility than a simple subset, your mappings may be from multiple tables,
or a subset of one of your tables. The other key is to be able to
incorporate into your data key industry level master data such as product
categories and their specifications.
>
>
>
> This is the basic, boots-on-the-ground work that is required to make
prescriptive ontologies a reality. But the foundation from which we must
begin is what ontological commitments are in fact, right now, in place in
individual databases. The prescriptive work of integrating these de facto
low-level ontologies, however, is not simply a bottom-up process of
supertyping the types we begin with. It is a process of working with a
well-developed upper-level ontology as well as a set of de facto low-level
ontologies, combining top-down guidance towards an ideal goal with
real-world realizations of ontological categories that have been proven,
over time, to actually work.
>
> [MW>] Yes, but when you look at the commitments/rules imposed by a
database, you should also be questioning whether these are not imposed as an
implementation convenience (changing what are really many-to-many
relationships to one-to-many for example).
>
>
>
> Perhaps this is something of a Manifesto - a description of a research and
a development program of work guided by strong theoretical commitments and
also a commitment to objects and processes that are time-tested in the real
world. I don't like the term "Manifesto", simply because of its creaky 19th
century feel. But I am proposing that we clearly distinguish descriptive
from prescriptive ontologies, clearly recognize the importance of
descriptive ontologies, and begin to formalize them in the manner described
above.
>
>
>
> Comments?
>
> [MW>] I think you are raising a lot of valid issues.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Matthew West
>
> Information Junction
>
> Mobile: +44 750 3385279
>
> Skype: dr.matthew.west
>
> matthew.west@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> http://www.informationjunction.co.uk/
>
> https://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
>
> This email originates from Information Junction Ltd. Registered in England
and Wales No. 6632177.
>
> Registered office: 8 Ennismore Close, Letchworth Garden City,
Hertfordshire, SG6 2SU.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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