Dear Matthew and Chris P, (01)
In principle, all those distinctions are important. (02)
But there is a serious question of whether they belong at the *top*
level or the *bottom* levels of an ontology. (03)
MW
> Presentism takes the view that only things that exist now exist, and that
> things in the past and the future do not exist. Eternalism take the view
> that all points in time exist, and we can talk about historical objects as
> existing, and future objects. (04)
That distinction can be critical for some applications and irrelevant
for others. Many people (and computer applications) can get along very
well without ever thinking about or using those distinctions. (05)
MW
> Absolute versus relative space, time and spacetime...
> Modally extended versus unextended individuals...
> Materialism and non-materialism...
> Extensionalism versus non-extensionalism...
> Topology of time - branching or linear... (06)
Those are important philosophical issues that can be critical for
some applications and irrelevant for others. Applications that
make different choices should be able to communicate with and
interoperate with other applications that ignore those distinctions. (07)
In particular, legacy systems that have no explicit ontology aren't
going away. Any ontology-based system that can't interoperate with
legacy systems will be relegated to a special-purpose niche. (08)
I keep mentioning Amazon.com as a company that must interoperate with
every supplier and customer in the world. Therefore, they require
an ontology that ignores all distinctions about products except those
that are relevant to buying, selling, shipping, and billing. (09)
Summary: The distinctions an ontology requires are determined by its
purpose. Making distinctions that are irrelevant to the purpose can
decrease its generality and interoperability. Therefore, the quality
of an ontology should be measured by its *relevant* distinctions. (010)
John (011)
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