Re: Question about ontology

On Sep 10, 2013, at 2:16 PM, jmcclure@hypergrove.com wrote:

> Yes Pouring is a gerund, both a noun and verb, consequently unsuitable as either a type of thing or as a predicate.

Seems to me that pouring is an action, something that can occur: it takes time, it has necessary conditions for it to occur, and it has consequences/effects on other things and other processes. "pouring" is a gerund, but the question was an ontological one, not a grammatical one. 

> With reference to earilier note, Pouring is short for "PouringThings", a tag that may be transiently attachable to anything (to any subject) that is "in" the state of being-poured. This last assertion mimics pretty well how we generally think about these things

My dear fellow, speak for yourself. I certainly don't think of pouring as a tag that is transiently attached to a thing. For a start, you can't pour a thing, only a piece of liquid (more generally, fluid) substance. 

Returning to the original question, however. We seem to be talking about containers (the bottle) and pieces of stuff inside them (the water in the full bottle.) I would suggest that "full bottle" is not a very useful category, and that this thing should be treated as comprising two parts: a bottle – the same bottle as it was when it was empty, with pretty much the same properties – and a piece of liquid (or, if you prefer, a piece of space fully occupied by liquid) enclosed in the internal enclosed space of the bottle, i.e. "inside" the bottle. (One could describe such a two-part composite using mereology, but that would be overkill.) The act or process by which the liquid got inside the bottle is presumably what is being called the "pouring" here, but I think this is misleading, as there are many ways for liquids to get into containers, and some of them would not normally be called "pouring". But one can say some general things about the process. It involves moving some liquid from one place (outside the bottle) to another (inside the bottle) and this must take some time, and it must involve the liquid moving along a pathway (a continguous volume of space without internal barriers) from the place it was first to the inside of the bottle. So there must be a piece of free space which is, for a time, occupied by fluid in motion and which connects to the inside of the bottle. If the liquid was indeed poured into the bottle, that piece of free space would be the column of pouring liquid entering the bottle presumably through its open top. All of the 'naive geometry' can be axiomatized into an ontology, but it does get rather complicated. 

For a lot more along these lines, you might take a look at a paper I wrote so long ago that it is not on the Web, except as a PDF of a typed manuscript: http://www.issco.unige.ch/working-papers/Hayes-1978-35.pdf. With regard to "pouring", see the last section 9 which distinguishes a liquid object from a piece of liquid, and the figure referenced there. I believe that some such distinction is necessary in order to give an adequate ontology for liquids in motion from one place to another. 

Pat Hayes

> -- nothing artificial; nothing needs to be translated to special ontology 'words' (like m_part_of, for 'mereologically part of') whose particular semantics are truly understood only by the fully washed; nothing at all surprising or challenging or mystifying, from the perspective of the general public.
> 
> On 10.09.2013 12:43, Paul Oude Luttighuis wrote:
> 
>> Hi J,
>> 
>>  
>> Good point. I interpreted the original question so that full bottles always result from pouring.
>> 
>>  
>> I might have interpreted otherwise, but I think it is essential to ask the following questions here:
>> 
>> 1.       Can I understand FullBottle only if I understand Pouring first?
>> 
>> 2.       Can I understand Pouring only if I understand FullBottle first?
>> 
>> 3.       Can I understand them independently from each other, and then relate them somehow?
>> 
>>  
>> I picked the first option. Consequently, I declared Pouring to be the context that defines FullBottle. In contextual models, this implies that different specialisations of Pouring may define very different types of FullBottle.
>> 
>>  
>> So, if you would see “pouring through a filter” as a specific kind (specialization) of pouring, than this would define a specialization of FullBottles, namely those that are defined by FilteredPouring.
>> 
>>  
>> If you think that this is not “pouring” anymore, that’s fine. Then, “pouring” is too narrow a context here. And we would have to use a wider concept for a context.
>> 
>>  
>> (Notice, by the way, that I used the word “pouring”. Is it a verb or a noun? You pick. It’s a gerund, the English way of nouning verbs.)
>> 
>>  
>> Regards,
>> 
>>  
>> Paul
>> 
>>  
>> From: jmcclure@hypergrove.com [mailto:jmcclure@hypergrove.com] 
>> Sent: dinsdag 10 september 2013 20:43
>> To: public-owl-dev@w3.org
>> Subject: RE: Question about ontology
>> 
>>  
>> Further, it's said a FullBottle results from "pouring"? Is it a different thing if I pour first through a filter into the bottle? Or how about if I collect the liquid into the bottle through a wholly different process, not pouring anything at all --- is that not a "FullBottle" anymore?
>> 
>> This is not a rhetorical question - it arises when something is categorically defined with reference to a process or action performed to create it.
>> 
>> /jmc
>> 
>> PS You are not 'in' a marriage. In fact nothing is "in" a marriage that I know of. Sure a marriage "has" a Wife and "has" a Husband, and you "are" a husband. Why not just use those words?
>> 
>> Marriage:Obama has:this Husband:Barack_Obama
>> Marriage:Obama has:this Wife:Michelle_Obama
>> Husband:Barack_Obama is:this Person:Barack_Obama
>> 
>> Can this possibly be improved, that is, made more clear to the AVERAGE person? How would other ontologies indicate the same smenatic content -- do they pass the "shared, intuitive understanding" test?
>> 
>>  
>> On 10.09.2013 10:38, jmcclure@hypergrove.com wrote:
>> 
>> Well sure a statement can be actively or passively stated for instance. And there's no dispute that the physical organization of a set of triples can be altered without changing the semantics of its statements (but so what?). I do strenuously dispute though that you can "turn adjectives nouns and verbs into each other". And I strenuously argue that any ontology that ignores adjectives and prepositions is seriously, deeply flawed -- such an ontology makes assertions such as yours ("no difference...(between)... a relation/predicate and (its) object") almost reasonable!
>> 
>> My problem is that there IS a difference. Objects are nouns. Subjects are nouns. But predicates can NOT be nouns; nouns can NOT be predicates. Rather, common nouns connote types of things: they are but labels for distinguishing generic identities. Nouns are not candidates for predicates!
>> 
>> But what do we see as a consequence of using nouns for predicates? Well, first off, you see tendencies to define property hierarchies that DUPLICATE noun hierarchites -- same noun, first upper cased in the noun hierarchy and then lower-cased in the property hierarchy -- golly how pregnant with meaning that first letter is made to be!
>> 
>> How can the outcome of a massively bloated noun-infused property hierarchy be said correct? Ever heard of Occams Razor?
>> 
>> thanks /jmc
>> 
>>  
>> On 09.09.2013 23:06, Paul Oude Luttighuis wrote:
>> 
>> Hi J,
>> 
>>  I’m afraid that’s not so fundamental. We shouldn’t over-interpret natural language grammar (nor physical appearance for that matter) when it comes to semantics. I can easily juggle around with adjectives, nouns and verbs and turn them into each other without changing the meaning of the sentence. Natural language grammar is superficial/superimposed structure for a large part.
>> 
>> As much as that I can say that I am *in* a marriage (which I am), I can say that some marriage relates me to my wife. Also, there is no fundamental difference between a relation/predicate on the one hand and an object on the other. They are just different perspectives of the same. A marriage is equally a relation as it is an object. We tend to take them apart, but for superficial reasons (natural language grammar, or mathematics). Reification is no exception, it’s the rule. Don’t we say that we take *part* in a relation?
>> 
>> So, I see no problem in having “full bottle” as the relation in this example. It relates “empty bottle” and “liquid”. The pouring is the context responsible for defining that relation. In case we can’t express contextuality, I would settle for seeing it as the third component of the relation. This makes sense (in this example), because you need “pouring” *first* before you can have full bottles.
>> 
>>  By the way, by saying that the difference between *being in something* and *taking apart in something* is superficial, I do not say that such distinction is always irrelevant. But, in case I would feel that this distinction is relevant, I should think about what makes the difference. This context (the differentiator), though, is *specific*, it’s not fundamental. This even holds for the physical context.
>> 
>>  
>> Cheers!
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> From: jmcclure@hypergrove.com [mailto:jmcclure@hypergrove.com] 
>> Sent: maandag 9 september 2013 22:09
>> To: public-owl-dev@w3.org
>> Subject: RE: Question about ontology
>> 
>>  
>> Well... If 'part-of' applies to liquid in a fullbottle, then wouldn't it be true you'd say that some car is part-of a full-garage? No, some liquid is IN a bottle, and some car is IN a garage. There's no need to redefine our most fundamental speech patterns!
>> 
>> /jmc
>> 
>> On 09.09.2013 11:52, Paul Oude Luttighuis wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Sybri team,
>> 
>>  
>> My first question would be the question of existence-dependency, in other words: which terms are needed to define others? In this case it seems to me that “empty bottle”, “liquid”, and “pouring” all preceed “full bottle”.
>> 
>>  
>> The semantic structure at hand then is: the context of “pouring” defines “full bottle” in terms of “empty bottle” and “liquid”.
>> 
>> In other words: pouring *is* not a relation between empty bottle and liquid, it *defines* such relations.
>> 
>> Such contextuality however cannot be expressed by OWL-type ontologies.
>> 
>>  
>> If you would however want to stick to the OWL world, then part-of would work perfectly I guess, but then I would see “pouring” as part-of “full bottle” as well. There is no upfront semantic reason not to.
>> 
>>  
>> Regards,
>> 
>>  
>> Paul
>> 
>>  
>> From: System Bridge [mailto:sysbri1@gmail.com] 
>> Sent: maandag 9 september 2013 13:32
>> To: public-owl-dev@w3.org
>> Subject: Question about ontology
>> 
>>  
>> Hello,
>> we are group of PHD students and we would like to ask you (ontology experts) for help/advice.
>> We`re trying to make a simple expert system using ontology as knowledge base. We have come to few problems and before making any conclusions, we would like to confront it with you.
>>  
>> We noticed that every explanation and example we found uses object hierarchy, e.g. OneThing isPartOf OtherThing or OneThing hasPart OtherThings. We don`t know how to model process which also causes that resulting object will be assembled from some other objects. For example:
>>    a) Object Empty bottle
>>    b) Object Liquid
>>    c) Process: Liquid will be poured into the Empty bottle and thus will create some new object Bottle filled with liquid - see image attached.
>> 
>> 
>> What we need is to define a relation “Pouring” that is between liquid and empty bottle. In fact we don’t really need “is part of” relations if there is a way to express “is part of” implicitly in “Pouring” relation, because it is obvious that the "Bottle with liquid" was created by "Pouring" the "Liquid" into the "Empty bottle". Also the direction of "Pouring" is important for us.
>> 
>> So, the question is whether you may help us either by explaining this particular example or providing us with helpful source of information how to solve it.
>> 
>> Thanks in advance
>> 
>> Your sincerely
>> 
>> Sybri team, University of Zilina, Slovakia
>> 
>>  
>>  
>>  
>  

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Received on Wednesday, 11 September 2013 05:28:19 UTC