Onto-Med >> Theories >> GFO Part I Basic Principles

Overview

General Formal Ontology (GFO)

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8.3 Relating Processes to Space

Processes are not directly related to space, but such a relation can be derived from the process boundaries (which are presentials).¹⁹

With material-structure processes, each boundary comprises exactly one material structure , where denotes the corresponding time-boundary. In this case, the convex frame of the topoid occupied by can be defined, denoted by (, . In order to assign some topoid to the overall process we consider the convex closure of every frame which is assigned to some for any time-boundary in the duration of the process.

With respect to quality processes, an additional step has to be taken, because qualities do not exhibit a direct relation to space. Therefore, for each boundary of the quality process, one must determine the material structure the quality inheres in. The construction for material-structure processes can then be applied to these material structures.

For complex processes, which involve a system of material structures and qualities, both approaches can be combined. First, the inherence closure of all qualities in each process boundary is derived. Then one can determine the convex closure for each of the material structures found. The final step integrates all topoids determined in this way within a single convex closure, which is then assigned to the complex process as its spatial location.

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Next: 8.4 Process Classifications Up: 8 Occurrents Previous: 8.2 Related Notions