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Overview
General Formal Ontology (GFO)
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14.9 Association
The relation  means ``the universal  is
associated with the situoid  ''. These universals determine which
material relations and individuals occur as constituents within a
given situoid. Thus, the association provides information about the
granularities and viewpoints that a situoid presupposes. For example, a
situoid may be a certain
part of the world encompassing the life of a tree in a certain
environment. If a tree is considered as an organism, then the
universals associated with determine the viewpoint of a biologist,
and the associated granularity of included types of individuals
(branches are included, electrons are not). The association relation
is related to a cognitive procedure that transforms mere material
structures into situations and situoids. Situations and situoids are
parts of the world
that can be ``comprehended as a whole''. At the purely material
level, these parts can be understood - we
believe - as superimposing fields (gravitational, electromagnetic,
etc.), which constitute a certain distribution of energy and matter. At
the mental or psychological level, this distribution
is perceived as a material structure. A material structure - as we
have introduced it - is a pre-version of a situation. At this level
of perception, certain structures may already be perceived: material
boundaries, colors and the like. The level of comprehension, of
understanding this part of the world as a situation, needs more than
only the elementary perceptual structures. Comprehension presupposes
the availability of concepts, and the formation and the use of
concepts seems to be a component of the mind's cognitive process. The
association relation is related to this ability of the mind to understand
material structures of the world as situations.
Robert Hoehndorf
2006-10-18
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