On Jun 20, 2007, at 12:06 PM, Mark Montgomery wrote:
Alan,
Hi Mark,
Rather than using the public community for just debate, perhaps it
would be best used as an educational tool.
Ouch :) (though I do think that debate is a useful tool in
education, and a survey of my posts would demonstrate that I've used
the list for a number of purposes)
For example, what is your definition of a construct within the
context of knowledge systems design in life sciences?
First, let me note that I did not originate the use of the term in
this discussion
Constructs occur at many levels. In this conversation the issue that
is being raised is the utility of distinction between continuant and
occurrent, or roughly, thing versus process (stuff that happens to
things), as the distinction is made in BFO and many other ontologies.
The counterproposals are not entirely clear to me, but in the case
of Patrick I believed that the alternative is to abandon this
distinction and consider everything a process, which may work
equally well - I don't have enough experience to know.
Just for the record, and not wanting to re-open an old debate or take
up too much time here, the proposal is not exactly to abandon this
distinction, and certainly not to disallow it when it is useful, but
to weaken its role in the formal ontology, so that it becomes legal
to use 'process' talk when referring to things (and vice versa). One
can view this as rooted in a philosophical (Whiteheadian) claim that
every thing is ultimately a process, but one can also view it purely
pragmatically as a way to simplify ontologies by removing the
distinction between a thing and its 'lifespan'. The main practical
effects are that the thing/process distinction is made into a matter
largely of convenience rather than a strict taxonomic division into
fundamentally different ontological categories, so that it is no
longer necessary to decide a priori whether something "is" a
continuant or not; some formalizations are simplified; and a uniform
treatment of time and change is made possible. The downside is that a
certain degree of sloppiness is thereby permitted, which can lead to
a failure to reconcile divergent points of view; and that some
people, apparently (I am not one of them) find it confusing or
unintuitive to apply process terminology to things.
I promise not to raise this issue again on this list unless invited
to do so. The debate is raging on other lists in any case.
Pat Hayes
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