Processes and Objects
GFO distinguishes processes and objects. Processes unfold in time, they have temporal parts. Objects (called presentials) have no temporal parts, and may only exist on time-boundaries. Presentials are dependent on processes. This can be seen as a derivation of the dependency-relations in the formalization of time: processes are always framed by a chronoid; and as time-boundaries are dependent on chronoids, so are presentials dependent on processes.
DOLCE and other ontologies face the problem of "identity": how is it possible to model the persistence of an object through time. In GFO, this problem is made explicit: all presentials explicitly exist only at a single time-boundary; persistence is modelled by a special type of category, a persistent.
Read more about this topic: General Formal Ontology
Famous quotes containing the words processes and/or objects:
“The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.”
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“The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples.”
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