Re: PROV-ISSUE-29 (mutual-iVP-of): can two bobs be mutually "IVP of" each other [Conceptual Model]

One of the examples that Tim and I have been working from is FRBR item
versus manifestation versus expression. Is "Moby Dick" a singular entity?
How about a particular edition or translation of it? They, at some level,
are talking about the same thing, and in some ways are singular things. But
there are many physical exemplars of Moby Dick, and within the FRBR
framework the physical aspect (Item) is disjoint from the physical pattern
(Manifestation) and from the content (Expression). Saying that each level
is talking about the same thing is kind of hard, because in one sense (the
manifestation), one copy of a book (or file) is  the same as another, but
at another level, they are different.

Jim

On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 7:11 PM, Stian Soiland-Reyes <
soiland-reyes@cs.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Sun, Apr 1, 2012 at 21:52, Paul Groth <p.t.groth@vu.nl> wrote:
> > Your example is correct...but I the common thing were talking about is
> the
> > thing in the chair,
> >
> > But maybe the gurus should step in
>
> I'm not claiming to be a guru on the matter, but we've had this
> discussion ( a few times!) before.
>
> If we assume every entity only maps to one thing in the world - and
> all those things are distinguishable, then we are enforcing a
> particular classification of things. (that there is some "real thing"
> in the end). How do we define a thing? What do you mean by "the car",
> do you include the petrol or not? Well, one way is to describe it as
> an entity.
>
> Two entities could be describing the ''same thing" if the two
> interpretations overlap. The now famous "Customer in chair at 6pm"
> entity overlaps with the  "Woman in red dress" entity - they are
> alternates of the "same thing", as they are both specializations of
> the same woman, let's call her Julie. CustomerInChairAt6Pm is also a
> specialization of CustomerInChair, and alternate of
> CustomerInChairAt7Pm.
>
> However they don't continue to be 'the same thing' as Julie gets up at
> 7pm to leave the cafe, and Bob sits down in her chair.
> CustomerInChairAt6pm disappears (is *consumed* by the Leaving
> activity, if you like), but Julie still wears her red dress;
> JulieInRedDress lives on. The CustomerInChairAt7pm has nothing to do
> with JulieInRedDress; they are not the same thing.
>
>
> In this case it was the passing of time that caused the
> same-thing-entities to transition to other entities which are not the
> same thing.
>
> For conceptual things this can happen in other ways, for instance,
> imagine the genome sequence GATTACA is a specialization of "the human
> genome sequence", which is an specialization of the actual genome
> sequences from a selection of humans. However as the human genome is a
> kind of idealized average, some of those humans might not have GATTACA
> in their genome, and so here it would not be transitive. (I know this
> is pushing it a bit, as you could rather say that the idealized
> sequence is derived from the actual sequences - however you often find
> derivation and specialization go hand in hand).
>
> My signature in the end of this email is a specialization of this
> email message, which is a specialization of my thoughts on this email
> thread. However the signature is not a specialization of those
> thoughts.
>
> --
> Stian Soiland-Reyes, myGrid team
> School of Computer Science
> The University of Manchester
>
>


-- 
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