Re: SUO: Re: ontology as science
Jon,
I believe that a good ontology should include the basics
of all the major science subjects, as taught at the junior
level in universities.
Unfortunately, those subjects are not consistent with one
another or even with themselves. Every subbranch of any
of the so-called "hard" sciences makes approximations that
are inconsistent with every other. And they even make further
approximations for every problem to be addressed.
If you look at an EE textbook, you will see nice little
square pulses running down the wires. But if you put an
oscilloscope on those wires, you will see squiggly blobs
bristling with spikes and slopover.
In fluid mechanics, the Navier-Stokes equations are so
difficult to handle, that every application uses a different
approximation. My favorite example is the engineer who "proved"
that nothing could move through air faster than the speed of
sound. It turned out that he started with equations that
were based on the assumption that all speeds were much less
than the speed of sound.
Bottom line: You need modules or microtheories to deal
with the basics of any branch of science or engineering.
And a monolithic ontology will be hopelessly inadequate
to deal with any real problem of science or engineering.
John