Re: Mapping SKOS into BFO

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 12:14 AM, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter@gmail.com> wrote:
> If SKOS:Concept was a child of BFO:GenericallyDependentContinuant,
> then you are restricting the published definition for SKOS:Concept.
> SKOS:Concept is deliberately defined subjectively as an open ended
> class that can be used to classify any unit of thought, whether it
> intimately relates to a single physical entity or otherwise.
>
> It may be more appropriate to define BFO: DependentContinuant as a
> subclass of SKOS:Concept.

I'm not sure I can think of examples that would satisfy that. What is
a thought other than something that occurs to some entity, and
therefore is borne by it? I can see an argument for saying that a
skos:Concept is not just generically dependent, since there are
thoughts that aren't capable of being communicated from one entity to
another. But I'm not sure that we would ever see instances of these,
since they would always be stuck inside someone's head. What would be
something that is a skos:Concept but not a dependent continuent?
Additionally, not all dependent continuents are concepts (qualities,
for instance), there may exist concepts that are about qualities, but
the quality "mass" exists separately from our idea of mass.

Jim
-- 
Jim McCusker
Programmer Analyst
Krauthammer Lab, Pathology Informatics
Yale School of Medicine
james.mccusker@yale.edu | (203) 785-6330
http://krauthammerlab.med.yale.edu

PhD Student
Tetherless World Constellation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
mccusj@cs.rpi.edu
http://tw.rpi.edu

Received on Thursday, 7 April 2011 04:41:48 UTC