=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1515/regular10
|storemode=property
|title=Aboutness: towards foundations for the Information Artifact Ontology
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1515/regular10.pdf
|volume=Vol-1515
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/icbo/SmithC15
}}
==Aboutness: towards foundations for the Information Artifact Ontology==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1515/regular10.pdf
Aboutness: Towards Foundations for the
Information Artifact Ontology
Barry Smith 1,* and Werner Ceusters 2
1
Department of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, 126 Park Hall, Buffalo, USA
2 Department of Biomedical Informatics, University at Buffalo, 921 Main Street, Buffalo, USA
ABSTRACT ic conductor. Generic dependence, in contrast, obtains
The Information Artifact Ontology (IAO) was created to serve as a where the first entity is dependent, not on some specific
domain‐neutral resource for the representation of types of information
content entities (ICEs) such as documents, data‐bases, and digital im‐
second entity, but rather merely on there being some second
ages. We identify a series of problems with the current version of the entity of the appropriate type (Smith et al. 2015). A DNA
IAO and suggest solutions designed to advance our understanding of sequence is generically dependent in this sense on some but
the relations between ICEs and associated cognitive representations in not on any specific DNA molecule; a pdf file on some but
the minds of human subjects. This requires embedding IAO in a larger not on any specific memory store; and so on.
framework of ontologies, including most importantly the Mental Func‐
tioning Ontology (MFO). It also requires a careful treatment of the A generically dependent entity is in each case concre-
aboutness relations between ICEs and associated cognitive representa‐ tized (see definition in section 5) in some specifically de-
tions and their targets in reality. pendent entity (more specifically in some BFO:quality). For
example, this DNA sequence is concretized in this specific
1 INTRODUCTION ordering (pattern) of nucleotides in this particular molecule;
At the heart of the IAO is the term ‘Information Content this sentence is concretized in this pattern of ink marks on
Entity’ (ICE), which is currently defined as follows: this piece of paper (or also in this pattern of neuronal con-
INFORMATION CONTENT ENTITY =def. an ENTITY which is nections in the brain of the subject who reads it). The term
(1) GENERICALLY DEPENDENT on (2) some MATERIAL ‘pattern’ can thus be understood in two senses – as referring
ENTITY and which (3) stands in a relation of ABOUTNESS either (i) to what is shared or communicated (between origi-
to some ENTITY. nal and copy, between sender and receiver), or (ii) to the
specific pattern before you when you are reading from your
An ICE is thus conceived as an entity which is about some-
copy of Tolstoy’s novel.
thing in reality and which can migrate or be transmitted (for
We can now define:
example through copying) from one entity to another. In
what follows we introduce and defend proposals to improve INFORMATION QUALITY ENTITY (IQE) =def. a QUALITY
this definition and the IAO as a whole. that is the concretization of some INFORMATION
The relation of generic dependence was introduced into CONTENT ENTITY (ICE) (Smith et al., 2013),
BFO 1.1 in order to capture the fact that some dependent noting that IQEs are called ‘information carriers’ in the cur-
entities – for example the dependent entity which is the pat- rent version of IAO.
tern of ink marks in your copy of the novel War and Peace All concretizations are qualities in the BFO framework.
(a complex quality in BFO terms) – are able to migrate from Such qualities can serve as the basis for dispositions. When
one bearer to another (e.g. through use of a photocopier). we concretize a lab test order by reading the text of the or-
Generic dependence can thus be defined as follows: der on our screen, then in addition to the mental quality that
a generically depends on b = def. a exists and b exists is formed in our mind as we read the text, there is also a
and: for some universal B, b instance_of B and neces- disposition to be realized in our actions of carrying out the
sarily (if a exists then some B exists) relevant test. This disposition may come into being simulta-
In BFO 1.0 the migration of dependent entities from one neously with the mental quality created through our under-
bearer to another was excluded. Dependence was seen as standing of the text, but it is still dependent on this quality,
amounting in every case to specific dependence, or in other as is shown by the fact that the latter may exist even in the
words as a relation which obtains between one entity and absence of any accompanying disposition.
another specific entity when the first is of its nature such We define ‘artifact’ and ‘information artifact’ as follows:
that it cannot exist unless the second also exists. A smile is ARTIFACT =def. a MATERIAL ENTITY created or modified
dependent in this sense on a certain specific face, a head- or selected by some agent to realize a certain FUNCTION
ache on a certain specific head, a charge on a certain specif- or ROLE (Examples: a key, a lock, a screwdriver)
INFORMATION ARTIFACT =def. an ARTIFACT whose func-
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed: phismith@buffalo.edu tion is to bear an INFORMATION QUALITY ENTITY. (Ex-
Copyright c 2015 for this paper by its authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes 1
Smith & Ceusters
amples: a hard drive, a traffic sign, a printed form, a aboutness and its rootedness in time and context are analo-
passport, a currency note, an RFID chip, a SIM card) gous to those of an instruction issued by someone who
As a matter of definition, therefore, all information artifacts points his index finger and says ‘go there now.’
are material entities. While every ICE is dependent upon The current IAO definition of ICE can account for the
some material entity that is its bearer ICEs themselves are aboutness involved in many examples of these sorts. How-
not material entities. ever, we believe that it falls short when it comes to more
complex cases. In (Ceusters, 2012) we proposed broadening
In reflection of the needs it was originally designed to ad-
the definition of ICE to require ‘aboutness to some portion
dress, the IAO is focused deliberately on ICEs associated
of reality’ rather than just ‘to some entity,’ in order to allow
with information artifacts – above all scientific publications
the domain of the aboutness relation to include inter alia
and databases – thus with information entities which are
continuants in BFO terms. No less important, however, is universals, for instance in the ICE concretized by the
the occurrent side of the informational coin, which is made string there are no instances of dinosaur which survive,
up of those processes – above all acts of thinking, speaking, relations, for instance in the ICE concretized by the
hearing, writing and reading – through which ICEs are cre- string the part-whole relation is transitive,
ated, understood, and communicated. Given that thinking other ICEs, for instance when someone asserts that
and speaking pre-dated writing, we know that acts of these what someone else just stated is true, and
sorts existed long before there were any information arti- configurations, for instance in the ICE concretized by
facts. They are of crucial importance to the ontological Barack Obama is the current President of the USA
treatment of the phenomenon of aboutness because it is they
– none of which is an entity in BFO terms.
which provide the relational tie between representations and
The last example on this list is not only about Barack
their targets in reality.
Obama but also about his role of being President of the
If, therefore, we are to deal with these more fundamental USA and about the USA itself. But it is not only about these
aspects of the information pipeline, then we will need to entities taken singly; in addition, it is about how the three
embed the IAO into a wider framework of ontologies. This entities are related to each other in a certain interval of time,
would include, on the one hand, all existing domain ontolo- and about the entire portion of reality – the configuration –
gies, which can be seen as representing the portions of reali- made up by all of these together. This configuration is as-
ty about which we have information – they are ontologies of serted to exist by a human subject using the corresponding
the various families of targets of aboutness. More im- sentence in a specific sort of context and with a specific sort
portantly here, however, it would include on the other hand of associated cognitive quality. But it can also be referred
the Mental Functioning Ontology (MFO), which is designed to, for instance when someone makes a second-order asser-
to provide the resources to describe different types of cogni- tion using a nominalized expression, as in: That Barack
tive acts, including those cognitive acts as a result of which Obama is President of the USA is of epoch-making signifi-
ICEs are created (Ceusters & Smith, 2010). cance.
2 ABOUTNESS AND PORTIONS OF REALITY 3 INFORMATION AND MIS-INFORMATION
Aboutness corresponds to what is otherwise referred to by We can on this basis address another issue with IAO’s cur-
means of the expressions ‘reference’ or ‘denotation,’ rent definition of ICE, which is that it does not give us a
(Yablo, 2014) but generalized to include not merely linguis- clear way of doing justice to the distinction between infor-
tic reference but also the relations of cognitive or intentional mation on the one hand and what we might call mis-
directedness that are involved, for instance, when a nurse is information on the other. Consider the ICE concretized in
measuring a patient’s pulse rate or a doctor is observing a the sentence Barack Obama was never President of the
rash on a patient’s thigh. These processes are about, respec- USA, written on some piece of paper in 2015. This ICE is
tively, a pulse and a rash. When the nurse enters the string indeed about Barack Obama, the USA, and so forth. But
72 beats per minute in the medical chart of the patient, then what it communicates about these entities is something that
there is an ICE that is concretized in the ink (or pixel) pat- is false. Our amended definition of ICE can allow us to ac-
tern exhibited on the chart, which inherits its aboutness from cept that both information and mis-information exist, but
the aboutness of what we shall call the nurse’s direct cogni-
also to recognize that the latter is not a special type of the
tive representation of the pulse. The latter is a (binary) rela-
former (that what some people might call ‘false infor-
tional quality; it links the nurse causally to the target of his
mation’ is not a special type of information, any more than a
observations. It is on this basis that, by entering data, he
creates an ICE that is also tied relationally to its target in cancelled oophorectomy is a special type of oophorectomy).
reality. Thus the ICE is not an abstract entity analogous to a We achieve this by using our generalized definition of ICE
‘proposition’ in logical parlance. Rather it is a created, his- to formulate a view according to which the relation of
torical entity that is marked by the feature of indexicality: its aboutness between a composite (for example sentential) ICE
2 Copyright c 2015 for this paper by its authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes
Aboutness: Towards Foundations for the Information Artifact Ontology
and the associated portions of reality can obtain (or fail to certain sorts with the patterns which they manifest. We thus
obtain) simultaneously on two (or in principle more than view the aboutness that is manifested by information con-
two) levels: first, on the level of simple referring expres- tent entities in accordance with the doctrine of the ‘primacy
sions such as ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘USA’; and second, on of the intentional’ (Chisholm, 1984), according to which the
the level of more complex expressions such as sentences aboutness of those of our representations formulated in
and their nominalizations. speech or writing (or in their printed or digital counterparts)
A true sentence on the upper level is about a correspond- is to be understood by reference to the cognitive acts with
ing configuration (where the term ‘configuration’ is to be which they are or can in principle be associated. The entry
understood in a way similar to the way ‘fact’ or ‘obtaining 72 beats per minute is about what it is about because of
state of affairs’ are understood by some philosophers what the nurse himself directly observed when he measured
(Wittgenstein, 1961)). We can now capture the fact that a the patient’s pulse (or, in the case where the ICE is created
given compound expression may inherit aboutness from by sensor devices automatically adding data to the chart, it
some or all of its constituent simpler referring expressions is about what the nurse would have observed in the given
but fail in its claim to aboutness (and thus to convey infor- circumstances).
mation) when taken as a whole. At higher levels we may have ungrounded representa-
If someone writes on a piece of paper the sentence tions, as illustrated for example in the letter published by
Barack Obama is President of Russia, then there is an ICE – Urbain Le Verrier in 1859 (Le Verrier, 1859) in which there
concretized by this written string and by any copies made appears an intended reference to a planet that is asserted to
thereof – which is generically dependent on the piece of be intermediate between Mercury and the Sun, a planet
paper and which is about (on the aforementioned lower lev- which in 1860 Le Verrier baptised ‘Vulcan’. This intended
el) Barack Obama, his being president, and Russia. But this reference depended on a certain belief on Le Verrier’s part
ICE is not about any corresponding configuration, simply in the existence of an intra-Mercurial planet. When we un-
because there is no corresponding configuration. It is for derstand Le Verrier’s text today, however, then we have a
this reason that the given sentence, while it is about certain different sort of cognitive representation – involving what
entities in reality, is nonetheless not true of those entities. we refer to below as a recognized non-referring representa-
This strategy can be used also to explain how a fictional tional unit (RNRU) – in which this intended reference to a
sentence such as Sherlock Holmes was a user of cocaine, planet has been cancelled.
can concretize an ICE – by inheriting aboutness from one or Such changes in our understanding of the reference of
more of its components (here for example the string cocaine, terms are of course a common phenomenon in the world of
which is about a corresponding universal) – even though the ontology, and specifically in the world of ontology version-
sentence as a whole is not about anything in reality. ing. Paying careful attention to these changes forms the ba-
A related problem with the current IAO is that it does not sis for the strategy for ontology evaluation we have outlined
provide us with the resources to do justice to what happens in (Ceusters & Smith, 2006).
with certain types of ICE when what they are about changes
over time. The problem here is that the ICE concretized by 4 REPRESENTATION AND REFERENCE
the sentence Barack Obama was never President of the USA We build on the notions of representation and representa-
written on a piece of paper in 2007 was true when it was tional unit informally introduced in (Smith et al., 2006). A
written; yet it appears that this very same sentence, when representation is there described as an idea, image, record,
read by some observer in 2009, would be false. or description which refers to (is of or about), or is intend-
This appearance is misleading, however, for it is not the ed to refer to, some entity or entities external to the repre-
case that the ICE in question changes in the intervening pe- sentation. Note that ‘representation’ is thus more compre-
riod. Rather, what has changed is the first-order reality that hensive in scope than ‘ICE,’ even on our proposed more
this ICE claims to be about. Certainly as a result of these inclusive definition of the latter, since an ICE must in every
changes in first-order reality there came into existence many case be about some portion of reality, where the aboutness
new ICEs relevant to Obama, the presidency and the USA, in question must always be veridical, so that ‘being about’ is
with many new concretizations. But the original ICE, with a success verb. A representation, in contrast, is required
its original concretization born with its original act of crea- merely to intend to be about something, and this intention
tion, must nonetheless still be evaluated as true. This is be- might fail (as when a child draws what she thinks of as a
cause, as in the case of the nurse’s data entry above, the ICE unicorn).
in question has its time of origin baked into it through the We provided a formal definition of ‘representation’ along
indexicality of the was in was never President. these lines in (Ceusters & Smith, 2010):
We shall presuppose in what follows that information ar-
tifacts do not bear information in and of themselves, but REPRESENTATION =def. a QUALITY which is_about or is
only because cognitive subjects associate representations of intended to be about a PORTION OF REALITY (POR).
Copyright c 2015 for this paper by its authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes 3
Smith & Ceusters
We can now single out cognitive representations (represen- RU ‘Paris’
tations of the sorts instantiated in the brains of beings like NRU ‘Atlantis’
ourselves) by means of the terms: UNRU ‘Vulcan’ (as used by Le Verrier in 1860)
RNRU ‘Vulcan’ (as used now when referreing to Le Verri-
MENTAL QUALITY =def. a QUALITY which specifically
er’s error)
depends on an ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE in the cognitive
system of an ORGANISM. RUC ‘Le’ (as it appears in the third row of this table)
COGNITIVE REPRESENTATION =def. a REPRESENTATION Table 1: Examples of types of representational unit
which is a MENTAL QUALITY. Note that, as the ‘Vulcan’ case makes clear, classifications
defined in the Mental Functioning Ontology. We are here of representations under headings 1. to 5. may change with
attempting to remain neutral as concerns the precise nature time. Note, too that, while items 2. to 5. on this list signify
of cognitive representations; thus it does not follow from the one or other kind of shortfall from aboutness, representa-
definitions that such representations involve something like tions under item 1. include the fundamental (grounding,
images; nor does it follow that they must all be conscious target-securing) cases of direct cognitive representation
representations. referred to in the case of the nurse taking someone’s pulse
As concerns occurrents in the realm of cognition, it is as in our example above.
clear that mental processes, too, for example processes of
thinking or imagining or remembering, may be about or be 5 PROPOSAL
intended to be about some portion of reality. We hypothe- 5.1 Primitives and elucidations
size, however, that such occurrent representations are al-
ways such as to inherit their intended aboutness from some To do justice formally to the foregoing we propose the fol-
underlying continuant representation. When the doctor sees, lowing primitive relational expressions. These cannot be
and recognizes, for example, that there is a rash on her pa- defined, but only elucidated by means of examples and in-
tient’s leg, then her act of recognition coincides temporally formal specifications of their meanings.
with the beginning to exist of a correspondingly targeted x is_about y means:
(relational) mental quality on her part (Smith, 1987). x refers to or is cognitively directed towards y. Do-
As we saw above, cognitive representations may be main: representations; Range: portions of reality. Axi-
more or less complex. When analyzed into their constituent om: if x is_about y then y exists (veridicality).
parts, however, then we arrive at what we called ‘represen-
tational units’ (RUs), defined as the smallest constituent x concretizes y at t means:
sub-representations, including icons, names, simple word x is a QUALITY & y is a GENERICALLY DEPENDENT
forms, or the sorts of alphanumeric identifiers we might find CONTINUANT
in patient records. (Smith et al., 2006) & for some material entity z, x specifically_depends_on
Subtypes of representational unit can then be defined as z at t & y generically_depends_on z at t
follows (Ceusters & Smith, 2010):
& if y migrates from bearer z to another bearer w then a
1. Referring representational unit (RRU): an RU which is copy of x will be created in w.
both intended to be about something and does indeed
succeed in this intent. x is_a_direct_cognitive_representation_of y means:
2. Non-referring representational unit (NRU): an RU x is a COGNITIVE REPRESENTATION in some subject s
which, for whatever reason, fails to be about any- & x is_about y & x comes into existence, as a result of a
thing. causal process initiated by y and in a way appropriate to
3. Unrecognized non-referring representational unit y, in the cognitive system of s. Example: a causal pro-
(UNRU): an NRU which, although non-referring, is cess of visual perception initiated by an object present-
intended and believed to be about something; ed visually to s.
4. Recognized non-referring representational unit 5.2 Definitions
(RNRU): an NRU which was once intended and be- x is_a_representation_of y =def. x is a REPRESENTATION
lieved to be about something, but which, as a result & x is_about y (where y is a portion of reality). Note
of advances in knowledge, is no longer believed to be that not all representations are about something.
so;
x is_conformant_to y =def. x is an INFORMATION QUALITY
5. Representational unit component (RUC): a component ENTITY & y is a COGNITIVE REPRESENTATION & there is
of a representation that is not intended by the arti- some GDC g such that x concretizes g and y concretizes
fact’s authors to refer in isolation; g. Example: x is a sentence on a piece of paper, y is the
4 Copyright c 2015 for this paper by its authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes
Aboutness: Towards Foundations for the Information Artifact Ontology
belief of the author of the sentence who wrote the sen- such a way as to generate mental representations that are
tence as an expression of her belief, and g is the ICE conformant to the associated ICEs. For this we will require a
(the content) that belief and sentence share. Language Ontology – extending the Ontology of Document
Acts proposed in (Almeida, et al. 2012) – that will allow us
6 DISCUSSION to do justice to the ways in which sentences can be not
Although it is a requirement that the target of aboutness be a merely believed and thought but also asserted, heard, seen
portion of reality (POR), there is no requirement that the (for example in the case of sign language), understood, and
relevant POR exists at the time when the associated cogni- formulated in written or printed texts.
tive representation exists. Thus a patient can contemplate a
past disorder, for instance by regretting his not having ac- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
cepted the advice of some clinician. His thoughts are then We are grateful to Bill Duncan, Mark Jensen, Tatiana
about that very disorder, and not for example about his Malyuta, Ron Rud-nicki, Alan Ruttenberg and Selja
memories thereof. This is so independently of whether the Seppälä for many valuable discussions.
nature of the disorder is known to him or not.
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