Spatial Dimensionality as a Classification Criterion for Qualities
Florian Probst and Martin Espeter
International Conference on Formal Ontology in Information Systems (FOIS 2006)
Baltimore, Maryland (USA), November 9-11, 2006
Abstract
We discuss how the spatial extent of physical endurants influences the conceptualization of their spatial qualities. Comparing the spatial dimensionality of a physical endurant with the spatial dimensionality of its qualities leads to an interesting formal ontological question. Should a spatial quality be conceptualized as having a value range instead of a single value when its bearer has a higher spatial dimensionality? For example, the one-dimensional depth quality can be conceptualized as having a value range when it is assigned to the three-dimensional water body of a lake. Allowing qualities to be located at more than one atomic region (quale) at a time might be philosophically debatable. Yet, this modeling approach enables the development of information discovery systems that can cope with ontologically imprecise user queries and can assist the user in defining ontologically precise quality specifications. This attempt brings formal ontology closer to practical applications. In order to justify this approach, we first introduce the assumptions on how physical endurants extent in physical space, emphasizing the role of spatial features. We then turn to the spatial qualities that can inhere in spatial features. In this context, we identify that any spatial quality itself has necessarily a spatial location quality. This enables a classification of spatial qualities according to their spatial dimensionality. We present a first cut on an ontology of spatial qualities which could contribute to a geo-spatial ontology module extending the foundational ontology DOLCE. We conclude that allowing conceptualizations in which the space regions of a feature and its spatial quality differ are useful in information discovery scenarios, yet need further specification in order to allow the assessment of semantic interoperability between information sources.