[OEP] Fwd: Re: discussion on part note

I am forwarding this from an off-line OEP excursion, to be archived.

For a general overview, and in particular for the transitivity 
problem, I've just got an interesting paper on part relations from my 
colleague Laure Vieu:

Vieu, L. & M. Aurnague (to appear). Part-of Relations, Functionality 
and Dependence. In: M. Aurnague, M. Hickmann & L. Vieu (eds.), 
Categorization of Spatial Entities in Language and Cognition. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Laure: is that paper available online?


>Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:32:15 +0100
>To: Pat Hayes <phayes@ihmc.us>
>From: Aldo Gangemi <a.gangemi@istc.cnr.it>
>Subject: Re: discussion on part note
>Cc: Christopher Welty <welty@us.ibm.com>, dlm@ksl.stanford.edu, 
>ewallace@cme.nist.gov, michael.f.uschold@boeing.com, 
>noy@SMI.Stanford.EDU, phayes@ihmc.us, rector@cs.man.ac.uk, 
>ekendall@sandsoft.com, loa@loa-cnr.it
>Bcc:
>X-Attachments:
>
>Uhuh, you are inviting me to a mice party in a giant cheese cake!
>
>At 16:50 -0600 17-02-2005, Pat Hayes wrote:
>>>Also for me Chris: do we move discussion to the list? maybe you 
>>>can make a compilation and move things there ...
>>>
>>>Concerning part-whole, consider the existing axiomatization and 
>>>typology (parts, proper parts, components, features, membership, 
>>>temporal indexing of parthood, transitivity issues, universe 
>>>restrictions, etc.) in DOLCE and its extended library 
>>>(DOLCE-Lite-Plus), existing in both FOL and OWL, with a rich 
>>>documentation at: http://dolce.semanticweb.org.
>>
>>Well, *consider* it, but then I would strongly recommend rejecting 
>>it, on the grounds that the central distinction it bases itself on 
>>(the perdurant/endurant distinction) has no useful place in a 
>>working ontology, and in fact is actively harmful to most practical 
>>part/whole reasoning. Which is a pity, as much of the DOLCE 
>>structure seems useful and well-thought-out; but this useless and 
>>harmful distinction runs through it like a fault line through a 
>>landscape.
>
>I could just tell you that a honourable distinction, existing in 
>many natural languages and much common sense reasoning, cannot be 
>said to be useless. But I take you earnestly.
>
>I think no distinction is harmful *per se*, provided it is explicit 
>enough to be evaluated for applicability.
>Premise: DOLCE is not the only way to draw distinctions: we have 
>built it as an example of an axiomatic ontology with an attempt to 
>base it on solid grounds, but in our Lab four-dimensionalist (or 
>n-dimensionalist) ontologies are being investigated and developed as 
>well.
>
>If your main criticism is against 3D ontologies, i.e. those that 
>assume that no temporal parts of objects can be predicated, e.g. 
>PatHayesYesterday -PART-OF-> PatHayesAsTemporalWorm), I should say 
>that it is just a matter of taste rather than harmfulness (not that 
>aesthetic appreciation cannot guard ourselves from harmfulness, but 
>some see 4D as cognitively noxious as well!).
>There are good arguments for the distinction, and other against it. 
>Most you can express in 4D can be expressed in 4D, and vice-versa: 
>some cases will be easier to model in one paradigm, others the 
>opposite.
>
>And distinctions go far beyond 3D vs 4D ... for example, do you 
>really think the distinction between objects and events has no room 
>in 4D?
>More practically: do you think it's the same part-of relation applied to:
>
>  i) PatHayesYesterday -PART-OF-> PatHayesAsTemporalWorm
>
>as to:
>
>  ii) PatHayesLiverYesterday -PART-OF-> PatHayesYesterday?
>
>or even as to:
>
>  iii) PatHayesLiverAsTemporalWorm -PART-OF-> PatHayesAsTemporalWorm?
>
>If you do not think they are the same relation (in the sense that 
>its universe is partitioned by appropriate axioms on different types 
>of entities), what's your criticism about? In DOLCE, you can talk of 
>PatHayesLife, parts of that life, of being part of Pat Hayes at time 
>t or forever, etc.
>
>If you think they are the same, then you accept that I sensibly say 
>something like:
>
>  iv) PatHayesLiverYesterday -PART-OF-> PatHayesAsTemporalWorm
>
>... uhm ... not that one cannot tell that, but this last use of 
>part-of implies (in 4D) that:
>
>  v) PatHayesLiverYesterday -PART-OF-> PatHayesYesterday -PART-OF-> 
>PatHayesAsTemporalWorm
>
>And this composition of relationships is logically different from 
>its component relationships, even if you state transitivity on all 
>uses of part-of, which is not necessarily a good practice.
>
>I know this is just the beginning :)
>A
>
>
>>
>>Pat
>>
>>>More precise comments after I read your note carefully.
>>>Aldo
>>>
>>>At 16:28 -0500 17-02-2005, Christopher Welty wrote:
>>>>We had an OEP telecon today and had some lively discussion on the 
>>>>part note.
>>>>
>>>>First of all we all agreed it is a good start. Despite numerous 
>>>>philosophical/ontological issues creeping into the discussion, we 
>>>>reached a consensus that for the simple note we shouldn't change 
>>>>it too much, and consider deeper issues for the longer note.
>>>>
>>>>We discussed for a while specific criticisms to the example, its 
>>>>general usefulness and correctness (wrt reality).  I suggested a 
>>>>change to a medical example, for which these criticisms had ready 
>>>>answers and in particular lay in Alan's expertise - even more, we 
>>>>could take the examples from actual usage.  In the end we 
>>>>convinced ourselves that this example was a good place to start 
>>>>because of its familiarity and general reusability.  Evan took 
>>>>the action to work on a corrected version of the example that is 
>>>>accurate wrt the anatomy of cars.  (Evan, be sure to include the 
>>>>critical issue of unsprung weight).
>>>>
>>>>Some specific comments:
>>>>
>>>>- It woudl be very useful to mention in this note the limitations 
>>>>on transivity in OWL DL (no cardinality restrictions) and perhaps 
>>>>exemplify it.
>>>>- Brush up the introduction section.  Rephrase "the key thing to 
>>>>represent about PW relations is that they are transitive", which 
>>>>seems to strong .  Add a brief discussion to the point that there 
>>>>are many "kinds" of PW relations and try to describe which one 
>>>>this note deals with.
>>>>
>>>>Also, Deb and perhaps others will send suggested references to add.
>>>>
>>>>I am willing to take a pass on it to address these issues.  Is 
>>>>the editor's draft the latest version?
>>>>
>>>>-Chris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Dr. Christopher A. Welty, Knowledge Structures Group
>>>>IBM Watson Research Center, 19 Skyline Dr., Hawthorne, NY  10532 
>>>>USA             
>>>>Voice: +1 914.784.7055,  IBM T/L: 863.7055, Fax: +1 914.784.7455
>>>>Email: welty@watson.ibm.com, Web: 
>>>>http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty/
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Aldo Gangemi
>>>Research Scientist
>>>Laboratory for Applied Ontology
>>>Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technology
>>>National Research Council (ISTC-CNR)
>>>Via Nomentana 56, 00161, Roma, Italy
>>>Tel: +390644161535
>>>Fax: +390644161513
>>>a.gangemi@istc.cnr.it
>>>
>>>*******************
>>>!!! please don't use the old gangemi@ip.rm.cnr.it
>>>address, because it is under spam attack
>>
>>
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>
>
>--
>
>
>
>
>Aldo Gangemi
>Research Scientist
>Laboratory for Applied Ontology
>Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technology
>National Research Council (ISTC-CNR)
>Via Nomentana 56, 00161, Roma, Italy
>Tel: +390644161535
>Fax: +390644161513
>a.gangemi@istc.cnr.it
>
>*******************
>!!! please don't use the old gangemi@ip.rm.cnr.it
>address, because it is under spam attack


-- 



Aldo Gangemi
Research Scientist
Laboratory for Applied Ontology
Institute for Cognitive Sciences and Technology
National Research Council (ISTC-CNR)
Via Nomentana 56, 00161, Roma, Italy
Tel: +390644161535
Fax: +390644161513
a.gangemi@istc.cnr.it

*******************
!!! please don't use the old gangemi@ip.rm.cnr.it
address, because it is under spam attack