[WN] Endurant Objects?

Hi Aldo,
>Concerning endurant and perdurant, they are usually (e.g in DOLCE,
>http://dolce-semanticweb.org) assumed with the approximate meaning of
>"object" (endurant) and "process" or "event" (perdurant).

Hmm, my understanding is that endurant and perdurant are descriptors applicable
to qualities and quantities, that is, to *attributes of* resources. A resource
has endurant and/or perdurant attributes. For example, a person's height is a
perdurant quantity; a person's eye color is an endurant quality.

Apart from that, events-as-process track to my view also of perdurants. However,
there is a huge difference between perdurant events and endurant events. (Note:
I consider an event to be an attribute of the thing to which it occurs, as it
relates to the 'state' of the resource.) A marriage ceremony is a process; a
recital of a marriage vow is a one-shot action consisting of no process
whatsoever. Maybe what needs to be done is to further define what a 'process'
is, from the DOLCE view? My own view is that a process is a series of actions
and subprocesses. An action (which normally occurs in the context of a process)
has no 'sub-action' and of course no subprocess component.

So, I am concerned about the presumption of a parallel between 'endurant' and
'object' -- I think it's somewhat misleading if not wrong. As for the larger
picture, sure, I agree that hooking a controlled, commercialized subset of WN
back to a transformed WN-ontology can be a good idea, although I'm not sure
about doing so until the subset is stable.

BTW, for a view of (the heart of) the Legal XHTML model -- where events are
prime (by your actions are ye known!) -- please see
http://www.hypergrove.com/OWL/ and navigate to 1) Resource Model and 2) Event
Model Our model allows "persons, places, and things" defined by other ontologies
to be 'pluggable' into the LegalXHTML ontology. For instance, a "Person" in
another model could subclass LegalXHTML's "ContactableThing" in order to pick up
Contact-related attributes. LegalXHTML aims to package its attributes, as much
as possible, as perdurant and endurant events. The model published (today) is a
first big step towards that goal.

Thanks for your reply,
John McClure

Received on Monday, 31 October 2005 20:08:59 UTC