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Questions about continuant fiat boundaries #107

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johnbeve opened this issue Sep 9, 2024 Discussed in #106 · 38 comments
Open

Questions about continuant fiat boundaries #107

johnbeve opened this issue Sep 9, 2024 Discussed in #106 · 38 comments
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@johnbeve
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johnbeve commented Sep 9, 2024 •
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Originally posted by gregfowlerphd September 5, 2024
This isn't really a bug, just a series of questions (though I suppose it's possible they might lead to a bug being uncovered).

The elucidation of ‘continuant fiat boundary’ reads:

A continuant fiat boundary b is an immaterial entity that is of zero, one or two dimensions & such that there is no time t when b has a spatial region as continuant part & whose location is determined in relation to some material entity

The final clause here suggests, without outright stating, that every CFB is a boundary of some material entity. Is that suggestion correct?

Also, while the elucidation indicates that every CFB’s location is determined in relation to some material entity, can a CFB’s location also be determined in relation to something that isn’t a material entity? And can a CFB be a boundary of something that isn’t a material entity?
@johnbeve johnbeve added the bug Something isn't working label Sep 9, 2024
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johnbeve commented Sep 9, 2024 •
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From Werner Ceusters:

@alanruttenberg
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I don't consider fiat boundaries to necessarily be boundaries of material objects in the sense of edges, or necessarily immediately adjacent to a material entity. The north pole is a fiat point, as is a Lagrange point. The equator is a fiat line. A geoid is a fiat surface.

@alanruttenberg alanruttenberg added discussion a question or comment followed by discussion and removed bug Something isn't working labels Sep 26, 2024
@wceusters
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I don't consider fiat boundaries to necessarily be boundaries of material objects in the sense of edges, or necessarily immediately adjacent to a material entity. The north pole is a fiat point, as is a Lagrange point. The equator is a fiat line. A geoid is a fiat surface.

This is an argument in favor of something Michael and I discussed earlier this week, i.e. that the term 'continuant fiat boundary' is probably a misnomer: not all entities that currently can fall under CFB (due to a lack of axioms and some terminological changes that happened between BFO2.0 and BFO2020) are what normally is understood by 'boundary'. Perhaps a renaming to 'fiat immaterial entity' is worth considering with as children 0D-FIE, 1D-FIE and 2D-FIE, and then each one of these has 2 children resp. 0D-CFB, and fiat-point, 1D-CFB and fiat-line and 2D-CFB and fiat-surface.

@alanruttenberg
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I would not be averse to such a renaming. Barry?

@phismith
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phismith commented Sep 27, 2024 via email

@johnbeve
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Well then allow me to stand in the way.

I don't consider fiat boundaries to necessarily be boundaries of material objects in the sense of edges, or necessarily immediately adjacent to a material entity.

Agreed. I don't read "whose location is determined in relation to some material entity" as implying every CFB is a boundary of some ME or immediately adjacent to an ME.

...not all entities that currently can fall under CFB (due to a lack of axioms and some terminological changes that happened between BFO2.0 and BFO2020) are what normally is understood by 'boundary'.

Fair point.

Perhaps a renaming to 'fiat immaterial entity' ...

I understand the misnomer issue, but what issues has this misnomer led to?

In contrast, won't introducing "Fiat IMM" lead to questioning about why there aren't bona fide IMM, analogous to objects? If we're to invite such questions, there should be motivation behind the invitation.

...as children 0D-FIE, 1D-FIE and 2D-FIE...

This is more than simply renaming. @wceusters is proposing changing the hierarchy from:

graph TD
    A[CFB] --> A1[Fiat Point]
    A[CFB] --> A2[Fiat Line] 
    A[CFB] --> A3[Fiat Surface]
Loading

To:

graph TD
    A[Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A1[0D Fiat Immaterial Entity]
    A[Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A2[1D Fiat Immaterial Entity] 
    A[Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A3[2D Fiat Immaterial Entity] 

    A1[0D Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A1A[0D CFB]
    A1[0D Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A1B[Fiat Point]

    A2[1D Fiat Immaterial Entity]  --> A2A[1D CFB]
    A2[1D Fiat Immaterial Entity]  --> A2B[Fiat Line]

    A3[2D Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A3A[2D CFB]
    A3[2D Fiat Immaterial Entity] --> A3B[Fiat Surface]
Loading

Changing annotation properties is one thing; changing the graph structure of BFO is quite another. The number of projects that rely on BFO grows daily, and in spaces where the benefits of adding edges and nodes has to be balanced against the costs of updating systems using it.

So, what are the benefits of adding this complexity to BFO?

I foresee more precision here opening up questions that - as far as I can tell - we don't need to answer. I'm much more inclined to a minimal upper-level structure which users extend, perhaps in ways similar to this proposal, as they need.

@johnbeve johnbeve self-assigned this Sep 28, 2024
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phismith commented Sep 28, 2024 via email

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phismith commented Sep 28, 2024 via email

@wceusters
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JB > Well then allow me to stand in the way.

WC > > I don't consider fiat boundaries to necessarily be boundaries of material objects in the sense of edges, or necessarily immediately adjacent to a material entity.

JB > Agreed. I don't read "whose location is determined in relation to some material entity" as implying every CFB is a boundary of some ME or immediately adjacent to an ME.

WC > > ...not all entities that currently can fall under CFB (due to a lack of axioms and some terminological changes that happened between BFO2.0 and BFO2020) are what normally is understood by 'boundary'.

JB > Fair point.

WC > > Perhaps a renaming to 'fiat immaterial entity' ...

JB > I understand the misnomer issue, but what issues has this misnomer led to?

WC: that we have a hard time determining, f.i. , where the organism stops, the extended organism begins and stops in relation to the organism, what the boundaries of external sites like armpits and groins are, etc. To not make mistakes require the CFB terms to be better defined.

JB > In contrast, won't introducing "Fiat IMM" lead to questioning about why there aren't bona fide IMM, analogous to objects? If we're to invite such questions, there should be motivation behind the invitation.

WC: of course it would, I hope so. But why did you not wonder why there is no 'continuant bona fide boundary' in BFO?

...as children 0D-FIE, 1D-FIE and 2D-FIE...

JB: > This is more than simply renaming. @wceusters is proposing changing the hierarchy from:

WC: that is correct

JB: > Changing annotation properties is one thing; changing the graph structure of BFO is quite another. The number of projects that rely on BFO grows daily, and in spaces where the benefits of adding edges and nodes has to be balanced against the costs of updating systems using it.

WC: That is a similar argument as that De Coronado used in my critique on the NCI Thesaurus in 2005: Ceusters might be right but it is now too expensive to correct it. At the other hand, can you give examples on how the CFB hierarchy is used in these many projects and can you demonstrate that they all understand the hierarchy in the same way? Having the results of such an inquiry would be a good basis in favor or against my case.

JB: > So, what are the benefits of adding this complexity to BFO?

WC: Clarity. And as a start, it would exactly reflect what you agreed with above and called a 'fair point'.

JB: > I foresee more precision here opening up questions that - as far as I can tell - we don't need to answer. I'm much more inclined to a minimal upper-level structure which users extend, perhaps in ways similar to this proposal, as they need.

WC: You are a true disciple of Barry ! :-) Reluctant to open a can of worms! But some worms taste good you know :-)

@wceusters
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BS: (note 'BS' stands here for 'Barry Smith', not for 'bull shit'). > GEOID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoid "According to Gausshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss, who first described it, it is the "mathematical figure of the Earthhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth", a smooth but irregular surfacehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface whose shape results from the uneven distribution of mass within and on the surface of Earth." So this belongs in the same region as the historico-mathematical entities I describe in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu7SmiQm_Fs Other examples (there are very very many) might be the average man, or better: the average body-shape of the average 40 year old French man, or the weight of the Earth at a given time. In any case far too complicated for BFO.

BS: I have a feeling that the mathematical structures realized by LLMs might belong here too. We need a new sister for IAO to deal with (at least some of) these things

WC: Perhaps, perhaps not. But determining that requires - as with CFB - a much better characterization of ICE and IQE, and perhaps a better determination of the sorts of relations that IQEs can have with other entities, so that one of these turn out to subsume what you call 'mathematical entities'. For sure, there are some things swept under the carpet in IAO matters. I hope the proposal for an IAO-sister is not motivated by a reluctance to keep it under the carpet.

@alanruttenberg
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The geoid is tied to a physical thing, named the earth's gravitational field. It is a surface formed by choosing a gravitational field strength and taking all points with that strength. It is used as a reference for height in e.g. GPS systems. There are relational qualities that have it as one of the relata. The specific gravitational strength that is chosen is a kind of average, but the surface is no average.

@alanruttenberg
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Mistake: An ellipsoid is what's used in GPS systems.

@alanruttenberg
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Here's a less disruptive change: Just change continuant fiat boundary to fiat immaterial entity. Fiat point, line, and surface stay the same. Subclassing below is for some other ontology.
I think the boundary nomenclature is confusing as the usage is for more than what are normally understood as boundaries.

@wceusters
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Here's a less disruptive change: Just change continuant fiat boundary to fiat immaterial entity. Fiat point, line, and surface stay the same. Subclassing below is for some other ontology. I think the boundary nomenclature is confusing as the usage is for more than what are normally understood as boundaries.

I like the idea of dropping boundaries as long as there is no better treatment for them in description and axioms, e.g. the 'boundary of' relation mentioned in the 2.0 specs as 'future work'. I see no issue for fiat point, but still with 'line' and 'surface' though. 'Line' suggests (at least to me) that there is no discontinuity in space. A possible counter argument to this suggestion might be that one would generally consider a 'dashed line' (like - - - - - - - - ) to be a 'line'. For 'surface' remains the same issue as with 'boundary': a 2D fiat immaterial entity doesn't need to be a surface (of something). '1D-' and '2D immaterial entity' are in that sense more neutral.

@phismith
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phismith commented Sep 30, 2024 via email

@michaelrabenberg
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Late to the party, but a few points about the relabeling suggestion:

Replacing "continuant fiat boundary" with "fiat immaterial entity" would seem to carry the implicature, given the present state of the BFO hierarchy, that sites are non-fiat immaterial entities, given that site and CFB (and spatial region) are disjoint (by [twc-1]). So, the resultant picture would be: There are immaterial entities, which include fiat ones and non-fiat ones, and the fiat ones include fiat points, lines, and surfaces, whereas the non-fiat ones include spatial regions and sites. This last bit seems dubious to me. At any rate sites seem no less fiat to me than fiat lines do.

Suppose at least some sites are fiat. Then either (i) all sites are fiat or (ii) some but not all sites are fiat. Consider these alternatives in turn.

If (i) is right, then a possibility relevant to the present discussion presents itself: replace "continuant fiat boundary" with "fiat immaterial entity" and move site below this relabeled category. This would of course be revisionary of the hierarchy, though, so maybe all-things-considered unreasonable for the sorts of reasons John raised already. But then it'd perhaps be better either to leave things as they are or to relabel CFB but pick a label that doesn't end up implying that some sites are non-fiat.

If (ii) is correct, then I don't see a way to non-misleadingly replace "continuant fiat boundary" with "fiat immaterial entity" without also relaxing the disjointness assumption concerning site and what is currently labeled "continuant fiat boundary." Again, though, perhaps better either to leave things as they are or to relabel CFB but pick a label other than "fiat immaterial entity."

@wceusters
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Late to the party, but a few points about the relabeling suggestion:

Replacing "continuant fiat boundary" with "fiat immaterial entity" would seem to carry the implicature, given the present state of the BFO hierarchy, that sites are non-fiat immaterial entities, given that site and CFB (and spatial region) are disjoint (by [twc-1]). So, the resultant picture would be: There are immaterial entities, which include fiat ones and non-fiat ones, and the fiat ones include fiat points, lines, and surfaces, whereas the non-fiat ones include spatial regions and sites. This last bit seems dubious to me. At any rate sites seem no less fiat to me than fiat lines do.

WC: Why does that seem dubious to you? You don't give a good motivation, and your objection further is based on a supposition:

Suppose at least some sites are fiat. Then either (i) all sites are fiat or (ii) some but not all sites are fiat. Consider these alternatives in turn.

WC: would there be a similar issue with 'fiat object part'?

WC: What other label would you suggest, avoiding the 'fiat', yet not having the current issue that not all fiat boundaries are actually bounding something?

@michaelrabenberg
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WC: Why does that seem dubious to you?

I admit that I don't have much of an argument that some sites are fiat. Just kind of seems plausible to me.

Here's a thought: compare the elucidations of CFB and site. They're very similar--similar enough that one could hardly be faulted for thinking a site is a 3D CFB. More directly to the present point: They're similar enough to make it implausible that all CFBs are fiat but no sites are.

Suppose at least some sites are fiat. Then either (i) all sites are fiat or (ii) some but not all sites are fiat. Consider these alternatives in turn.

WC: would there be a similar issue with 'fiat object part'?

Not certain I follow. For there to be a parallel issue for fiat object part, it'd have to be the case that fiat object part and its sibling classes (object and object aggregate) are disjoint, but (uniquely among sibling classes in BFO) they aren't.

WC: What other label would you suggest, avoiding the 'fiat', yet not having the current issue that not all fiat boundaries are actually bounding something?

I've tried to think of one and haven't had any luck.

@alanruttenberg
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Barry has explicitly said that sites can be fiat. Came up in a discussion of sites of geopolitical entities.

@wceusters
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Barry has explicitly said that sites can be fiat. Came up in a discussion of sites of geopolitical entities.

Did he mean literally 'a site in total' or 'fiat site part' like 'fiat object part'? In other words, there are no fiat objects, but would there be fiat sites? Or: since every fiat object part is part of some object (the object NOT being a 'fully' fiat entity), would every fiat site be part of some site, that site not being a 'fully' fiat entity? If there would be 'fully fiat' sites, then 'fiat immaterial entity' would have to include such sites, but then we would have 'fiat site' being subsumed by 'site' and 'fiat immaterial entity' which is against the BFO principles. I believe for good reason, because it obfuscates the existence of some other entity. It might also question whether the notion of 'fiat' is something different for fiat object parts than for fiat boundaries and for fiat sites. Another issue that clearly need to be fleshed out. For example, fiat object parts clearly exist without any intervening third party that declares the part to be 'fiat'. For geopolitical entities, there must at least have been a 'politician' who issued by decree that this site or that site part is created by fiat.

@phismith
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phismith commented Oct 11, 2024 via email

@wceusters
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From: Werner Ceusters @.> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2024 9:28 AM To: BFO-ontology/BFO-2020 @.> Cc: Barry Smith @.>; Assign @.> Subject: Re: [BFO-ontology/BFO-2020] Questions about continuant fiat ...

WC: Thus, since there are no fiat sites, but 'fiat site parts', we could still go for fiat immaterial entity with the subtypes I indicated, and add under it as well 'fiat site part'.

@michaelrabenberg
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Barry, just to be clear: what do you mean when you say there are no "fully fiat" sites? Do you mean that every site has a non-fiat part? (If I'm following that's how WC is reading you.)

WC: Thus, since there are no fiat sites, but 'fiat site parts', we could still go for fiat immaterial entity with the subtypes I indicated, and add under it as well 'fiat site part'.

I believe one could indeed do this if everything you'd call "fiat immaterial entity" is defined as fully fiat in the sense being entertained (having no non-fiat parts).

However: Do fiat object parts never have any non-fiat parts?

@phismith
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phismith commented Oct 11, 2024 via email

@wceusters
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BS: "Wyoming is a fiat site" (stated in #107 (comment)),
BS: "There can be no fully fiat sites" (stated in #107 (comment))

WC: it seems that a serious clean up of terminology is required.

@alanruttenberg
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Suppose Wyoming merged with Montana becoming Montoming, then Wyoming (the site) would cease to exist. Similarly, if I was playing a kids game with an arbitrary site marked as "the safe zone", then after the game that site would cease to exist.
At least that was my understanding after talking to Barry.

@michaelrabenberg
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Every site has or depends on a non-fiat boundary

But does every site have a non-fiat part? A "fully" fiat thing in the present sense, if I'm tracking, is a fiat thing with no non-fiat parts. I'm trying to see if no sites are fully fiat in that sense.

Maybe you're working with a more demanding sense of "fully fiat." Maybe you mean that, to be fully fiat, you have to have no fiat parts and depend on no fiat things. But depending on what "depend on" means, some things currently labeled "CFBs" are arguably not fully fiat in that sense. (Does the equator not depend on anything non-fiat?)

Your arm has lots of non-fiat parts, indeed it has lots of objects (cells, ...) as parts BS

This is what I thought. But then "fiat object part" doesn't mean fully fiat object part. So if one merely introduced "fiat immaterial entity" to mean fully fiat immaterial entity there'd be seriously confusingly equivocal labels in the hierarchy.

In general, the notion of full vs. partial fiathood is interesting and could stand to be worked out more explicitly; some definitions could perhaps get improved accordingly even if no big relabelings occur.

@michaelrabenberg
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^To anticipate a reply to something I said above: Obviously the equator is an "independent continuant." But that doesn't imply that it doesn't depend on anything non-fiat. Or at least if it does imply that, then no independent continuant depends on anything, so trivially no site depends on anything non-fiat.

@wceusters
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Every site has or depends on a non-fiat boundary

This is what I thought. But then "fiat object part" doesn't mean fully fiat object part. So if one merely introduced "fiat immaterial entity" to mean fully fiat immaterial entity there'd be seriously confusingly equivocal labels in the hierarchy.

In general, the notion of full vs. partial fiathood is interesting and could stand to be worked out more explicitly; some definitions could perhaps get improved accordingly even if no big relabelings occur.

WC: there are clearly at least 2 different meanings for 'fiat' here. One is as just for fat object parts: the Nordern Hemisphere of Earth is fiat in this sense way before there was a cognitive Earthling who could observe that 'pre-existing' fiat object part. The 2nd one is the creation of something by decree.

My use of 'full fiat' broadened the discussion in a way I didn't expect, because meaning became attached to it that I did not intend: i.e. whether non-fiat entities can be part of fiat entities. What I meant was making a distinction between what is fiat without decree (my arm currently), and what does not exist without decree, such as Wyoming. While for many entities it doesn't seem to matter for their ontological definition how they came into being, for the Wyoming-sort, it does matter. And for the boundary stuff, it matters too. We need to work on that.

@alanruttenberg
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^To anticipate a reply to something I said above: Obviously the equator is an "independent continuant." But that doesn't imply that it doesn't depend on anything non-fiat. Or at least if it does imply that, then no independent continuant depends on anything, so trivially no site depends on anything non-fiat.

If it's an independent continuant then it doesn't depend on anything. "Independent"

Unless there's some other sense of dependent that I'm not aware of.

@alanruttenberg
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partly fiat sounds like a little bit pregnant.

@hoganwr
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hoganwr commented Oct 11, 2024 via email

@phismith
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phismith commented Oct 11, 2024 via email

@alanruttenberg
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It's a fiat boundary in the same way any boundary given of a mountain is fiat. Fiat is informed by the presence of the hole/mountain. There may be a some boundary dependence on the hole/mountain, but that doesn't make it partly fiat, at least in the literal sense that there is a part of the boundary that is not fiat.

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And that hole, maybe it was dug after the boundary was marked.

@michaelrabenberg
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^To anticipate a reply to something I said above: Obviously the equator is an "independent continuant." But that doesn't imply that it doesn't depend on anything non-fiat. Or at least if it does imply that, then no independent continuant depends on anything, so trivially no site depends on anything non-fiat.

If it's an independent continuant then it doesn't depend on anything. "Independent"

Unless there's some other sense of dependent that I'm not aware of.

Barry says:

Every site has or depends on a non-fiat boundary

Let's assume, as seems obvious, that this is meant to imply (even though it doesn't deductively entail) the following claim:

(1) At least one site depends on at least one non-fiat boundary.

Alan says:

If it's an independent continuant then it doesn't depend on anything.

So, Alan holds:

(2) No independent continuant depends on anything.

But BFO says these things:

(3) Every site is an immaterial entity.
(4) Every immaterial entity is an independent continuant.

And (1)-(4) are inconsistent.

One claim that I think ought to be rejected is (2). There are many types of dependence, and so many types of independence. It's true that the definition of independent continuant rules out the possibility of an independent continuant that specifically or generically depends on something. So if one adds the following extra assumption:

(5) The only types of dependence are specific and generic dependence,

then one will get (2) partly from the definition of independent continuant. But (5) is implausible and at any rate BFO doesn't require it. (It's true BFO doesn't explicitly recognize any counterexamples to (5). But then BFO doesn't explicitly recognize non-fiat boundaries, either, but the existence of such things is implied by (1).)

Finally, just take a few steps back. Whatever exactly fiat surfaces are, it's not plausible that no fiat surface depends in any way on anything. So as long as we follow BFO in regarding fiat surfaces as independent continuants, we should hold that some independent continuants depend in at least some ways on some things.

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phismith commented Oct 12, 2024 via email

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phismith commented Oct 14, 2024 via email

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