Re: ISSUE-73 (infinite universe): REPORTED: Should owl:Thing be necessarily infinite?

On 21 Nov 2007, at 14:31, OWL Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:

>
>
> ISSUE-73 (infinite universe): REPORTED: Should owl:Thing be  
> necessarily infinite?
>
> http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL/tracker/issues/
>
> Raised by: Jeremy Carroll
> On product:
>
> In this description the 'universe' means the class extension of  
> owl:Thing.
>
>
> In OWL 1.0 Full, the universe is necessarily infinite.
>
> In OWL 1.0 DL, the universe is required to be non-empty.
>
> The compatibility between OWL Full and OWL DL could be enhanced by  
> requiring the universe to be infinite in both cases.
>
> Looking at:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-dev/2007AprJun/0131
> and related messages, this is not difficult to implement.

I don't think that this is really a email related to this issue: in  
OWL DL and OWL 1.1, we can write

- an ontology such that all of their models are of finite cardinality
- an ontology such that all of their models are of infinite cardinality

I think that what you suggest is to change the semantics of (OWL DL  
and?) OWL 1.1 so that every interpretation domain contains, in  
addition to "owl:thing"s, infinitely many other elements -- is this  
the case?

Cheers, Uli

>
>> From a modelling point of view, any model with a finite domain of  
>> discourse, would model that domain as a subclass of owl:Thing; and  
>> the domain owl:Thing would be reserved as everything in a Web  
>> context, for which it is difficult to give a finite bound.
>
>
>
>
>