1. ontology meets big data:
immutability
ODISE IV
4th International Workshop on
Ontology‐Driven Information Systems Engineering
Co-located with
Formal Ontology in Information Systems 2012
Tuesday, 24th July
Chris Partridge
Chief Ontologist, BORO Solutions,
partridgec@BOROGroup.co.uk
Also available at: http://www.borosolutions.co.uk/solutions/content/files/2012-07 - Ontology meets Big Data -
Keynote - ODISE IV - FOIS2012 -Presentation - show.ppsx/view

2. topics
rationale
big data: immutability
ontology
• architecture
• change component
not the whole story: need to consider
epistemology
• two dimensional semantics
• bitemporal data
• architecture for epistemic change
summary
questions
© 2012 BORO Solutions 2

3. rationale
joined-up thinking
opportunities for joining up
an example: immutability
3

4. joined-up thinking
join ‗pure‘ to
‗applied‘
philosophy
enterprise
(ontology/ immutability
computing
epistemology)
pure applied
“pure mathematics, may it never be of any use to anyone.”
Henry John Stephen Smith (1826-1883)
toast to the Mathematical Society of England in Science, 10 Dec 1886
for some disciplines, there is a gap that is too wide to cross
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5. pure and applied:
science and engineering
how should they join up?
• the traditional joined-up view:
• science devises theories
• engineering works out whether and where it is useful to apply them
may end up choosing different ‗best‘ theories
• standard illustration
• civil engineers use Newtonian rather than Einsteinian theories to design bridges, etc.
• in other words, engineers can legitimately select a different ‗best‘ theory from physicists
• but they select a theory from physics
enterprise computing and ontology are not joined-up in this science-
engineering way
• enterprise computing devises its own theory-lite solutions on ontological topics
• either
• there is something different about these disciplines
• or
• there are potentially opportunities for improvement
• one way to show they are not different is to identify an opportunity
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6. opportunities for joining up
how do we identify the joining up opportunities?
no guarantee that:
• any particular topic in philosophy will be relevant to
enterprise computing
• any particular theory in a topic will have utility in
enterprise computing
however, if one can find a topic that:
• enterprise computing has shown in useful, and
• ontology has matching theories
• then, this is likely to be an opportunity
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7. an example: immutability
offer ‗immutability‘ as an example
• ‗applied‘ enterprise computing:
• has identified it‘s utility
• has (roughly) identified the underlying issue - change
• is devising its own theory-lite solutions
• ‗pure‘ ontology:
• also has theories about:
• underlying issue – change
• the relation between immutability and change
• suggest that these can usefully be joined up
• utility and theory pull in the same direction
• show how philosophical immutability provides a theory that can:
• deep our understanding of enterprise computing immutability
• lead to better enterprise computing systems
―There is nothing so practical as a good theory‖
• Kurt Lewin (p. 169 - Field theory in social science - 1951)
• corollary: not having a good theory may be much less practical
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8. big data: immutability
what is immutability?
in enterprise computing
why does big data like it?
8

9. what is immutability?
in enterprise computing
―In programming, an immutable object is an
object whose state cannot be modified after it is
created.‖
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immutable_object
Person Person
Age Date of birth
Brad Brad
Pitt Pitt
48 18-12-1963
looks looks
mutable immutable
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10. recognised pragmatic technical benefits
view from the sharp end:
• ―Benefits of immutability
• Immutable classes, when used properly, can greatly simplify programming. They can only
be in one state, so as long as they are properly constructed, they can never get into an
inconsistent state. You can freely share and cache references to immutable objects
without having to copy or clone them; you can cache their fields or the results of their
methods without worrying about the values becoming stale or inconsistent with the rest
of the object's state. Immutable classes generally make the best map keys. And they are
inherently thread-safe, so you don't have to synchronize access to them across threads.‖
• ―Freedom to cache
• Because there is no danger of immutable objects changing their value, you can freely
cache references to them and be confident that the reference will refer to the same value
later. Similarly, because their properties cannot change, you can cache their fields and
the results of their methods.‖
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-jtp02183/index.html
some references:
• Adrian Birka and Michael D. Ernst. A practical type system and language for reference immutability. In John
M. Vlissides and Douglas C. Schmidt, editors, OOPSLA, pages 35–49. ACM, 2004.
• Christian Haack, Erik Poll, Jan Schafer, and Aleksy Schubert. Immutable objects for a java-like language. In
ESOP, pages 347–362, 2007.
• Richard Bornat, Cristiano Calcagno, Peter W. O‘Hearn, and Matthew J. Parkinson. Permission accounting in
separation logic. In POPL, pages 259–270, 2005.
• M. J. Parkinson. Local Reasoning for Java. PhD thesis, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 2005.
UCAMCL-TR-654.
NOTE: no mention of ontological theories of change!
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11. why does big data like immutability?
number of potential advantages;
• focus on one:
• big data brings performance challenges
• replication has performance advantages
• e.g. put a copy of the data closer to the user.
• immutability makes replication simpler
• if the data is immutable, then one can only create and read
the entries on the database.
• so keeping replicas up to data can focus on appending data
• called ‗append-only‘ - a kind of ‗storage monotonicity‘
» no implication of entailment monotonicity
Replica 1
Replica 2
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12. accountants don't use erasers
accountants don't use erasers because they don‘t
want to end up in jail
• when an entry is made in the accounting records, it is
never erased
• can add another entry to correct a mistake,
• but cannot erase the original entry
append-only (data storage monotonicity) has
been around for a long time!
• was centuries old when described in:
• Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli, Summa de arithmetica,
geometria, proportioni et proportionalità (Venice 1494)
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13. an enterprise computing example:
problem
Datomic a new development in databases - http://datomic.com/
• their view of the problem
• ―So the data model in Datomic is a very atomic model, we store entity,
attributes and values and if you're trying to make things immutable and you
want to keep track of time, then you move away from what I would call
place-oriented programming which is what you do when you have tables or
documents. There is a place for this fact to go. Instead you say "I want to
keep track of all the facts ever", and when you do that, you need to be able
to say "A lot of things aren‘t facts", that is why we want to change our
databases, because somebody moves and has a new address. So the way to
do that without using places and going and replacing the address, is to say
"This was Fred‘s address at this point of time" and later you say "This is
Fred‘s address at that point of time".‖
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/hickey-datomic
• summary: things in the domain change
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14. an enterprise computing example:
solution
Datomic (technical) solution
• ―Both are facts, one was true for the interval between the two, and one was true
since that. So each fact then is atomic in being an entity, attribute, value and
time, and we call that a "datum", and the time we actually encode by
remembering the transaction you were part of, because transactions are
serialized, your transaction designates when you happened relative to everything
else. That way we can encode the time of day on the transaction. Transactions
are entities like any others, so you can encode other facts about the transaction,
for instance, who enacted it, or what was the providence of the data that came
in. In this way you can, for instance, very easily find out what else was said
when this was said, find the other things said in the same transaction. So that
adds the time element to the data, and it allows you to keep all the data.‖
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/hickey-datomic
summary: theory-lite technical solution
• transaction-stamp and append-only
• underneath the covers is a monotonic ordering by transaction
• can map this back to what Bertrand Russell called an “at-at” approach
• at this time it was x, at that time it was y
• The Principles of Mathematics (1903)
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15. what is happening?
change happens (exists) in the domain
the computing system needs to represent this
changing the representation directly is costly
find technical (theory-lite) ways to avoid representing the
change with a change in representation
world-to-system fit
understandably a „Plato‟s Cave‟
shift the focus to the world
mentality has been adopted
what is the nature of change
that focuses on the
representation rather than the
represented
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16. ontology architecture
build engineered rather than
accidental ontologies
ontology for change is a vital
component
16

17. why ontological architecture?
building a large scale system without some kind of
organisation guarantees a disaster
building an ontology for a large scale system without some
kind of organisation guarantees a disaster
• a key aspect of ontology organisation is ontology architecture
• an ontological architecture needs some organising principles
• sensible to make these explicit
• sensible to consciously and rationally decide on these principles
some references for ontological architecture:
• Partridge, C. (1996). Business Objects: Re - Engineering for re - use. Oxford, Butterworth Heinemann.
• Partridge, C. (2002). LADSEB-CNR - Technical report 06/02 - Note: A Couple of Meta-Ontological Choices for
Ontological Architectures. Padova, LADSEB CNR, Italy
• Recap of (2002) paper above.
• Borgo, S., A. Gangemi, N. Guarino, C. Masolo, and A. Oltramari. (2002). ―WonderWeb Deliverable D15 Ontology RoadMap.‖
The WonderWeb Library of Foundational Ontologies and the DOLCE ontology.
• p. 11 - 4 ROADMAP OF MAJOR ONTOLOGICAL CHOICES
• Salim K. Semy, Mary K. Pulvermacher, Leo J. Obrst. (2004). Toward the Use of an Upper Ontology for U.S. Government and
U.S. Military Domains: An Evaluation. DOCUMENT NUMBER MTR 04B0000063, MITRE TECHNICAL REPORT
• p. 3-10 Table 2. Ontological Choices Summary.
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18. ontology for change is a vital component
some of these principles are based upon
metaphysical choices
major metaphysical choices include:
• perdurantism versus endurantism change
• presentism versus eternalism
• absolute versus relative space, time and space-time
• modally extended versus unextended individuals
• materialism and non-materialism
• extensionalism versus non-extensionalism – I –
universals
• extensionalism versus non-extensionalism – II –
particulars
• topology of time – branching or linear
principles (metaphysical choices) ≈ components
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19. change architecture
component
engineering an architecture for
change:
a major aspect
19

20. some basic issues are old
around 500 B. C. Heraclitus put forward one view:
―Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing
stays fixed.
You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet
others, go flowing on.
Time is a child, moving counters in a game; the royal power is a child's.‖
• transience is basic,
• the present is primary.
a generation or so later Parmenides put forward the opposing
view:
―There remains, then, but one word by which to express the [true] road:
Is. And on this road there are many signs that What Is has no beginning
and never will be destroyed: it is whole, still, and without end. It neither
was nor will be, it simply is—now, altogether, one, continuous…‖
• permanence is basic.
• time is at best secondary, at worst illusory
translation (for both): Wheelwright, Philip. 1960. The Presocratics. Indianapolis.
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21. enormous literature in philosophy
still an active research area:
• Adams, Robert M., ―Time and Thisness,‖ in French, Peter, Uehling, Theodore, and Wettstein, Howard (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy 11, Studies in Essentialism (University of Minnesota Press, 1986), pp. 315-329.
• Bigelow, John, ―Presentism and Properties,‖ in Tomberlin, James (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 10, Metaphysics (Blackwell, 1996), pp. 35-52.
• Alexander, H.G. (ed. and trans.), The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Manchester University Press, 1956).
• Aristotle, De Interpretatione, in Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton University Press, 1984).
• Aristotle, Physics, in Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton University Press, 1984).
• Bourne, Craig, A Future for Presentism (Oxford University Press, 2006).
• Bradley, F.H., Appearance and Reality (Swan Sonnenschein, 1893; second edition, with an appendix, Swan Sonnenschein, 1897; ninth impression, corrected, Clarendon Press, 1930).
• Haslanger, Sally, ―Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics,‖ Analysis 49 (1989), pp. 119-125.
• Haslanger, Sally, ―Humean Supervenience and Enduring Things,‖ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1994), pp. 339-359.
• Haslanger, Sally, ―Persistence, Change, and Explanation,‖ Philosophical Studies 56 (1989), pp. 1-28.
• Hawley, Katherine, How Things Persist (Oxford University Press, 2001).
• Heller, Mark, The Ontology of Physical Objects: Four Dimensional Hunks of Matter (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
• Hinchliff, Mark, ―The Puzzle of Change,‖ in Tomberlin, James (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives 10, Metaphysics (Blackwell, 1996), pp. 119-136.
• Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith (Macmillan, 1963).
• Keller, Simon, and Nelson, Michael, ―Presentists Should Believe in Time-Travel,‖ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (2001), pp. 333-345.
• Le Poidevin, Robin (ed.), Questions of Time and Tense (Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Le Poidevin, Robin, and McBeath, Murray (eds.), The Philosophy of Time (Oxford University Press, 1993).
• Lewis, David, On the Plurality of Worlds (Basil Blackwell, 1986).
• Markosian, Ned, ―A Defense of Presentism,‖ in Zimmerman, Dean (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Vol. 1 (Oxford University Press, 2003).
• Markosian, Ned, ―How Fast Does Time Pass?,‖ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53(1993), pp. 829-844.
• Markosian, Ned, ―The Open Past,‖ Philosophical Studies 79 (1995), pp. 95-105.
• Maudlin, Tim, The Metaphysics Within Physics (Oxford University Press, 2007).
• Maxwell, Nicholas, ―Are Probabilism and Special Relativity Incompatible?,‖ Philosophy of Science 52 (1985), pp. 23-43.
McTaggart J., The Unreality of Time. 1908. Mind 17.68: 457–
• McCall, Storrs, A Model of the Universe (Clarendon Press, 1994).
• McTaggart J., The Unreality of Time. 1908. Mind 17.68: 457–474.
• Meiland, Jack W., ―A Two-Dimensional Passage Model of Time for Time Travel,‖ Philosophical Studies 26 (1974), pp. 153-173.
• Mellor, D.H., Real Time II (Routledge, 1998).
474.
•
•
•
•
Newton-Smith, W.H., The Structure of Time (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
Price, Huw, ―A Neglected Route to Realism About Quantum Mechanics,‖ Mind 103 (1994), pp. 303-336.
Price, Huw, Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point: New Directions for the Physics of Time (Oxford University Press, 1996).
Prior, Arthur N., ―Changes in Events and Changes in Things,‖ in Prior, Arthur, Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 1-14.
• Prior, Arthur N., ―The Notion of the Present,‖ Stadium Generale 23 (1970), pp. 245-248.
• Prior, Arthur N., Papers on Time and Tense (Oxford University Press, 1968).
• Prior, Arthur N., Past, Present, and Future (Oxford University Press, 1967).
• Prior, Arthur N., ―Some Free Thinking About Time,‖ in Copeland, Jack, (ed.) Logic and Reality: Essays on the Legacy of Arthur Prior (Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 47-51.
• Prior, Arthur N., ―Thank Goodness That's Over,‖ in Prior, Arthur N., Papers in Logic and Ethics (Duckworth, 1976), pp. 78-84.
• Putnam, Hilary, ―Time and Physical Geometry,‖ Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967), pp. 240-247.
• Quine, W.V.O., Word and Object (MIT Press, 1960).
• Rea, Michael C., ―Temporal Parts Unmotivated,‖ The Philosophical Review 107 (1998), pp. 225-260.
• Savitt, Steven, ―There's No Time Like the Present (in Minkowski Spacetime),‖ Philosophy of Science 67 (2000), supplementary volume, Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 5563-5574.
• Savitt, Steven (ed.), Time's Arrows Today: Recent Physical and Philosophical Work on the Direction of Time (Cambridge University Press, 1995).
• Shoemaker, Sidney, ―Time Without Change,‖ Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), pp. 363-381.
• Sider, Ted, Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (Oxford University Press, 2001).
• Sider, Ted, ―Presentism and Ontological Commitment,‖ Journal of Philosophy 96 (1999), pp. 325-347.
• Sklar, Lawrence, Space, Time, and Spacetime (University of California Press, 1974).
• Smart, J.J.C., Philosophy and Scientific Realism (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963).
• Smart, J.J.C., ―The River of Time,‖ Mind 58 (1949), pp. 483-494 (reprinted in Flew, Antony (ed.), Essays in Conceptual Analysis (St. Martin's Press, 1966), pp. 213-227).
• Smart, J.J.C., ―Spatialising Time,‖ Mind 64 (1955), pp. 239-241.
• Smith, Quentin, Language and Time (Oxford University Press, 1993).
• Stein, Howard, ―On Einstein-Minkowski Space-Time,‖ Journal of Philosophy 65 (1968), pp. 5-23.
• Stein, Howard, ―A Note on Time and Relativity Theory,‖ Journal of Philosophy 67 (1970), pp. 289-294.
• Swinburne, Richard, ―The Beginning of the Universe,‖ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 50 (1966), pp. 125-138.
• Swinburne, Richard, Space and Time (Macmillan, 1968).
• Taylor, Richard, Metaphysics, 4th Edition (Prentice-Hall, 1992).
• Thomson, Judith Jarvis, ―Parthood and Identity Across Time,‖ Journal of Philosophy 80 (1983), pp. 201-220.
• Thorne, Kip S., Black Holes and Time Warps (Norton, 1994).
• Tooley, Time, Tense, and Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
• Van Inwagen, Peter, An Essay on Free Will (Clarendon Press, 1983).
• Van Inwagen, Peter, ―Four-Dimensional Objects,‖ Nous 24 (1990), pp. 245-255.
• Weingard, Robert, ―Relativity and the Reality of Past and Future Events,‖ British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 23 (1972), pp. 119-121.
• Williams, Donald C., ―The Myth of Passage,‖ Journal of Philosophy 48 (1951), pp. 457-472.
• Yourgrau, Palle, Gödel Meets Einstein: Time Travel in the Göodel Universe (Open Court, 1999).
• Zimmerman, Dean, ―The A-theory of Time, the B-theory of Time, and 'Taking Tense Seriously',‖ Dialectica 59 (2005), pp. 401-457.
• Zimmerman, Dean, ―Persistence and Presentism,‖ Philosophical Papers 25 (1996), pp. 115-126.
• Zimmerman, Dean, ―Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism,‖ in van Inwagen, Peter, and Zimmerman, Dean (eds.), Metaphysics: The Big Questions (Blackwell, 1998), pp. 206-219.
• Zwart, P.J., About Time (North-Holland Publishing Co., 1976).
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22. McTaggart‘s A-Series and B-Series
McTaggart J., The Unreality of Time. 1908. Mind 17.68:
457–474.
• distinguishes two ways of ordering events in time:
• a relation of ‗earlier than‘
• this ordering McTaggart calls the B-series
• a selection of a privileged moment within the B-series as the
present moment.
• this ordering McTaggart calls the A-series
• NOTE: different formal structures
• B-series has no privileged moment, all moments are equal
• A-series has a privileged moment – ‗now‘ = present
• these lead to different relations and properties:
• A-properties:
• present, past, future, 5 years hence, 5 years ago
• B-relations:
• earlier than, later than, simultaneous with, 5 years later than
• we have seen something similar earlier:
• recall person ‗age‘ an A-property and ‗date-of-birth‘ a B-moment
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23. two opposing theses
this gives us two opposing theses about the nature of
change
• reality of time thesis:
• an event changes
• by first being future, then present, and then past,
• in other words,
• by changing positions relative to ‗now‘ in an A-series ordering
• unreality of time thesis:
• events do not change
argument
• time is real only if real change occurs
• if there are no changes, then there is no time - time is unreal
• if there are changes, then there is time - time is real
which thesis to select?
• if time is unreal, things are immutable
• enterprise computing utility prefers the unreality of time thesis
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24. explaining talk about unreal change
if one adopts the ‗unreality of time‘ thesis, then change does not
exist
• adopting the thesis is a revisionary stance,
• so needs more explanation
• one needs to have a story about our everyday talk about change
two similar ‗stories‘:
• redefining change - ―Cambridge‖ change
• an entity x has changed where there is some predicate F that is true of x at
a time t1 but not true of x at some other time t2.
• Geach, P.T. (1969). God and the Soul, p. 71-2 – named it in homage to McTaggart
and Russell who were from Cambridge
• (see Russell‘s at-at theory of motion - at this time it was x, at that time it
was y – The Principles of Mathematics (1903))
• redefining talk - change fictionalism
• fictionalism is where talk about a thing is useful, but does not commit one to
its existence
• metaphorical talk is a common example
• we can tie ourselves in unnecessary knots by insisting that ordinary ways of
talking about a thing (such as changes) are always to be taken literally.
• an old example of Wittgenstein‘s;
• if someone says they ―married money,‖ we do ourselves no favours by
hunting around for the money they married
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25. unreality of time ontology:
example
situation
• there is a car.
• it has a front right tyre.
• when the car was built, a tyre was ‗installed‘ in the front right side of
the car.
• at some point in time, this tyre was taken off and a new tyre installed.
useful to count the objects … (hopefully this is not contentious)
• #20 – car (system).
• #25 – car‘s front right tyre (system component).
• #21 – original tyre.
• #22 – replacement tyre.
obvious intuitive puzzle
• seem to be more objects than you see when you look at the car
• what is the connection between the system component tyres and the
‗manufactured‘ tyres?
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26. visualising the objects
System
System
Component
all the objects are „immutable‟ – there is no change
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27. this pattern is commonplace
another example
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28. ‗immutable‘ meets ‗unreality of time‘
clearly there is a close match between:
• the aspirations of ‗immutable‘, and
• the nature of the ‗unreality of time‘
if a system‘s ontological architecture‘s change
component is based upon the ‗unreality of time‘,
then:
• implementing immutability is a natural and straight-
forward
• the objects in an ‗unreality of time‘ ontology do not change
• so no need to represent change in the domain
• NOTE: no up-front need for time-stamping
• time-stamping properties often a sign of the ‗reality of time‘
thesis
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29. a match made in heaven?
‗pure‘ ontology and ‗applied‘ enterprise computing
pull in the same direction
• pure ontology provides a thesis that explains why things
are immutable – and what they look like
• (in enterprise computing speak; how to model them)
• enterprise computing provide a pragmatic reason for
selecting the ‗unreality of time‘ thesis
BUT …
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30. not the whole story
need to consider epistemology
31

31. some obvious incompatible cases
what happens if:
• a user makes a mistake that needs to be changed
• ‗Partridge‘ is input as ‗Patridge‘ (often happens to me)
• the original input needs to be retracted and the correct input made
• the system makes a best estimate on partial information that
gets updated in the light of new information
• given what it knows now, my bank balance is £150
• I then tell it about a purchase for £50 on Amazon
• it needs to update my bank balance
various types of issue:
• mistaken (false?) knowledge
• incomplete knowledge
all issues about what the system knows
• AKA epistemic issues
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32. two-dimensional semantics
34

33. well-known ‗feature‘
well-known ‗feature‘ in both philosophy
• (and enterprise computing)
in philosophy arises in various guises, most
recently called ‗two-dimensional semantics‘
• Extensive literature going back quite a few decades
(includes);
• 1977 - Evans, G., Reference and contingency. The Monist 62:161-89.
• 1978 - Stalnaker, R., Assertion. In (P. Cole, ed.) Syntax and Semantics: Pragmatics, Vol. 9. New York:
Academic Press.
• 1979 - Kaplan, D., Dthat. In (P. Cole, ed.) Syntax and Semantics. New York: Academic Press.
• 1981 - Davies, M. & Humberstone, I.L., Two notions of necessity. Philosophical Studies 58:1-30.
• 1989 - Kaplan, D., Demonstratives. In (J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein, eds.) Themes from Kaplan.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• 1996 - Chalmers, D.J., The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
• 1998 - Jackson F., From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defense of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
• 2002 - Chalmers, D.J., On sense and intension. [consc.net/papers/intension.html]
• 2004 - Chalmers, D.J., Epistemic two-dimensional semantics, Philosophical Studies 118:153-226.
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34. epistemic dimension:
an example
indexicals are good example of how the epistemic dimension works
(see Kaplan 1979, 1989)
I say today
You say today ―I am hungry‖
I said yesterday ―Chris is hungry on 24th July"
You said yesterday
• indexed to a person and a time
• and a (possible) world, if you have a possible world semantics
• sometimes known as „centred worlds‟;
• a triple of a world, an individual and a time, or
• a time-slice of an individual
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35. bitemporal data
enterprise computing‘s version
of two dimensional semantics

36. bitemporal data
A temporal database with built-in time aspects
• the temporal aspects usually include;
• valid time
• denotes the time period during which a fact is true with respect to the
real world
• transaction time
• is the time period during which a fact is stored in the database
bitemporal data combines both valid and transaction time
• same data will often have different times
• consider a temporal database storing data about the 18th century
• the valid time of these facts is somewhere between 1701 and 1800
• whereas the transaction time starts when we insert the facts into the
database, for example, January 21, 1998
being incorporated into the SQL standard
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37. two-dimensional data
reasonably direct translation;
• valid time = ontic dimension
• transaction time = epistemic dimension
illustrates how the same issues can arise in
philosophy and enterprise computing
• and similarly structured solutions
• same separation of concerns
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38. architecture for epistemic
change
which way to go?

39. reality or unreality of time? again
epistemic architecture
• change component
• options:
• reality or unreality of time? again
system‘s knowledge does change over time
• what it knew yesterday
• could be different from
• what it knows today
• could be different from
• what it will know tomorrow
• remember centred worlds – time-slice of the system
seems like ‗reality of time‘ is the natural way to go
• ‗reality‘ as a relation between a momentary state of the
individual (system) and what it knows
• what = ontology
• it knows = epistemology
© 2012 BORO Solutions 41

40. implementing the epistemic architecture
requirement
• immutability is a ‗good thing‘
• how to implement it over the epistemic A series structure?
solution
• the theoretical part
• treat the epistemology as a view over an ontology, so it
inherits its immutability
• so layers rather than dimensions
• separate what is known from the knowing event
• bitemporal data works in this way
• the engineering part
• order (time-stamp as well, if you want) and append
increases in knowledge
• treat retractions as separate transactions
© 2012 BORO Solutions 42

41. summary

42. summary
there is an opportunity to join up pure ontology and applied
enterprise computing
• both have seen
• a challenge in in change
• a solution in immutability
• enterprise computing has recognised the practical benefits of
immutability
• but has no real theory to guide its modelling
• philosophical ontology has a number of theories of change
• one of these is based upon immutability (unreality of time) theory
• looks like a match made in heaven
• can lead to:
• better understanding
• better models and so systems
• situation is more complex
• epistemic as well as ontological factors need to be considered
• a two-dimensional (or two-layered) approach preserves the
ontological benefits
© 2012 BORO Solutions 44

43. questions?