[tdwg-content] Treatise on Occurrence, tokens, and basisOfRecord

[Hilmar Lapp]

Hi Stan:

On Oct 27, 2010, at 3:31 AM, Blum, Stan wrote:

> 1) An Occurrence is the intersection of an Individual and an Event  
> (has
> place and time dimensions); and
> 2) an Occurrence is an Individual bounded by (in) space and time.
>
> It would be incorrect to truncate #2 as: "an occurrence is an  
> individual",
> or even to say that an individual is_a (kind of) occurrence.


I wasn't trying to say that Rich is inconsistent. I was trying to make  
the point that if we want to model and express things with explicit  
semantics, we need to also properly choose our terminology, as in any  
domain of science. In OWL, the term intersection has an already  
defined meaning in the language. If A is an (is equivalent to an)  
intersection of classes B and C, any reasoner will automatically infer  
that A subClassOf B, and A subClassOf C. If such inference is  
incorrect, I suggest that we shouldn't call it an intersection to  
begin with. Avoids misunderstandings down the road.

In fact, I think this is fully in line with the rest of your post.

	-hilmar
-- 
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: Hilmar Lapp  -:- Durham, NC -:- informatics.nescent.org :
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