On Jun 21, 2007, at 2:57 PM, Pat Hayes wrote:
Which simplifies things enormously and means that busy, practical biologists don't have to keep wondering whether the Krebs cycle or a computer program is a continuant or an occurrent
Why would a busy, practical biologist ever wonder if a computer program was a continuant or occurrent?
I'll bet the busy practical biologists that build the Gene Ontology didn't spend much time debating whether or not tricarboxylic acid cycle belonged in the biological process hierarchy - they just put it there. Similarly with the OBO chemical entity ontology and tricarboxylic acid. Of course, neither had either BFO or the continuant-occurrent distinction at the back of their mind, the distinction was more up the mid-upper level, ie the roots of the respective domain ontologies (as well as just common sense). It happens that BFO happens to match this very nicely - which perhaps reinforces your point that it's the mid-upper level distinctions that matter (although I may be wrong - your position would seem to be that we can mush together the chemical entity continuants and the processes they participate in).
It's unfortunate that you keep choosing bad examples to back up your claims - there are actually better ones. If you do jump back into the fray (hope you do), try a gnarly embryological development example. Or perhaps something to do with qualities...
