On 19 Mar 2015, at 7:34, Pat Hayes wrote: (01)
> On Mar 19, 2015, at 2:40 AM, Matthew West <dr.matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Chris,
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> ...
>> [MW>] This argument is not really about a distinction, no one (well
>> at least
>> not me) is arguing that you cannot have both physical objects and
>> activities
>> in your ontology, the question is whether they are mutually exclusive
>> or
>> not. That is a constraint. Endurantism has the belief/insistence that
>> this
>> constraint is always true. If you find that it is not always true,
>> then it
>> is unhelpful to insist on it, because when it is untrue you will have
>> extra
>> work to do to work round on it.
>
> Exactly. But let me suggest that the real constraint here is that when
> something is considered to be an object or a process, then each way of
> thinking of it has to come with a particular way of formalizing it.
> This is completely unnecessary, and if this purely syntactic
> constraint is lifted, then the philosophical disagreements become just
> that, purely philosophical matters, irrelevant to the actual practice
> of ontology building. Ontological frameworks like OBO require writing
> things like (Relation x T) when x is a continuant and (Relation (stage
> x T)) when x is an occurrent, so they must keep a rigid separation
> between the two categories. (02)
Can we translate this to a concrete example? I feel you keep pointing
out imaginary problems in what your conception of the OBO framework is. (03)
Let's say we have a relation 'has substrate', and it has a domain
constraint of process, and a range constraint of molecule (continuant),
and it connects the process to a molecule that is changed somehow by the
process. You're saying the framework here is a problem because you're
unable to say (04)
molecule1 has-substrate molecule2
process1 has-substrate process2 (05)
I suppose I'm so indoctrinated that I see this as a feature, not a bug. (06)
> Until one knows which category a new concept is in, one is quite
> literally unable to write even the simplest axioms about it, so the
> ontology engineering process cannot even begin. (07)
I can see how this might be a problem if you were sitting down to make
an ontology of chemical structures and just couldn't decide if chemical
structures were processes or structures. Or if you were making an
ontology of biological processes and couldn't decide if the biological
processes were processes or physical entities. (08)
Meanwhile, in the real world of OBO ontologies developed by domain
scientists outside of philosophy land, this hasn't turned out to be a
problem. (09)
> But suppose that these two ways of saying that R is true of x at a
> time T are interchangeable, interderivable, and have exactly the same
> meaning, both intuitivel
> y and in the Tarskian model theory, so that the choice between them is
> purely one of axiom-writers taste or convenience, a matter of ontology
> engineering aesthetics, no more. Then work can continue without
> resolving what might be a difficult and lengthy (or even meaningless)
> debate, and indeed can continue and be completed, without ever needing
> to resolve such a dispute. It no longer matters whether x is a
> continuant or an occurrent; and in time, I suspect, this distinction
> would simply wither and die from under-use, as having no bearing on
> the actual practice of ontology construction. Or perhaps Chris M is
> right and the distinction is critically embedded in intuitive human
> thinking (010)
I'm not sure I would go so far. But in the OBO world at least the
distinction between objecty things and processy things arose naturally
independent of philosophical involvement. (commitment to finer grained
or more exotic upper level categories is a different matter entirely, I
will grant you) (011)
> : fine, by all means keep it around, if it suits you. But it need no
> longer have this arbitrary connection to syntactic axiomatic style. (012)
Sorry, I don't know what you mean by syntactic axiomatic style. All OBO
ontologies used an OWL concrete form as syntax. I wasn't aware of any
syntactic styles imposed by choosing to differentiate between physical
entities and processes. (013)
> You can write (R x T) when x is a process (or an object) and you can
> also write (R (Stage xT)) when x is an object (or a process). Work can
> proceed while the philosophical dogs are barking at each other. (014)
I'm not sure what these philosophical dogs are, and what exactly the
perceived problem is with OBO ontologies distinguishing processes from
physical entities. (015)
If I'm understanding correctly, you'd like domain/range restrictions and
other upper level constraints to be lifted for relations like R? You
object to not being able to say a 'fruit ripening' is part of a 'fruit',
and having to use a different relation? (016)
If there is a problem with OBO ontologies, help me fix things. Give me
concrete examples. Otherwise I guess the problems are philosophical. (017)
> Pat Hayes
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