Ontology

Overview / Open Energy Ontology / Class - independent continuant

Label: independent continuant

Definition:

A continuant that is a bearer of quality and realizable entity entities, in which other entities inhere and which itself cannot inhere in anything.

Definition:

b is an independent continuant = Def. b is a continuant which is such that there is no c and no t such that b s-depends_on c at t. (axiom label in BFO2 Reference: [017-002])

Sub classes:

immaterial entity

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Editor note:

BFO 2 Reference: Immaterial entities are divided into two subgroups:boundaries and sites, which bound, or are demarcated in relation, to material entities, and which can thus change location, shape and size and as their material hosts move or change shape or size (for example: your nasal passage; the hold of a ship; the boundary of Wales (which moves with the rotation of the Earth) [38, 7, 10

material entity

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Definition:

An independent continuant that is spatially extended whose identity is independent of that of other entities and can be maintained through time.

Editor note:

BFO 2 Reference: Material entities (continuants) can preserve their identity even while gaining and losing material parts. Continuants are contrasted with occurrents, which unfold themselves in successive temporal parts or phases [60

Editor note:

BFO 2 Reference: Object, Fiat Object Part and Object Aggregate are not intended to be exhaustive of Material Entity. Users are invited to propose new subcategories of Material Entity.

Editor note:

BFO 2 Reference: ‘Matter’ is intended to encompass both mass and energy (we will address the ontological treatment of portions of energy in a later version of BFO). A portion of matter is anything that includes elementary particles among its proper or improper parts: quarks and leptons, including electrons, as the smallest particles thus far discovered; baryons (including protons and neutrons) at a higher level of granularity; atoms and molecules at still higher levels, forming the cells, organs, organisms and other material entities studied by biologists, the portions of rock studied by geologists, the fossils studied by paleontologists, and so on.Material entities are three-dimensional entities (entities extended in three spatial dimensions), as contrasted with the processes in which they participate, which are four-dimensional entities (entities extended also along the dimension of time).According to the FMA, material entities may have immaterial entities as parts – including the entities identified below as sites; for example the interior (or ‘lumen’) of your small intestine is a part of your body. BFO 2.0 embodies a decision to follow the FMA here.

Back to the super classes:

continuant

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Definition:

An entity that exists in full at any time in which it exists at all, persists through time while maintaining its identity and has no temporal parts.

Editor note:

BFO 2 Reference: Continuant entities are entities which can be sliced to yield parts only along the spatial dimension, yielding for example the parts of your table which we call its legs, its top, its nails. ‘My desk stretches from the window to the door. It has spatial parts, and can be sliced (in space) in two. With respect to time, however, a thing is a continuant.’ [60, p. 240

Editor note:

Continuant doesn't have a closure axiom because the subclasses don't necessarily exhaust all possibilites. For example, in an expansion involving bringing in some of Ceuster's other portions of reality, questions are raised as to whether universals are continuants