Real-World Entity

A real-world entity is an entity with a physical location (within the universe).

• AKA: Concrete Object, Concreta.
• Context:
  • It can range from being a Atomic Physical Entity to being a Composite Physical Entity (such as a physical system).
  • It can be:
    • a Physical Object.
    • a Physical Phenomena.
  • It can be in a Physical Relation with another Physical Entity.
  • It can be Denoted by a Concrete Noun.
  • It can exert a Force.
  • It can be destroyed
• Example:
  • a single Point Particle, such as an quark.
  • The Universe at this moment.
  • a single living organism, such as E.coli bacteria (or their cytoplasmic membrane).
  • a book, such as a copy of “Principia Mathematica” (or one of its written word mention).
  • a Computing System, such as the this web browser.
  • an Information-Bearing Non-Connected Stone Arrangement.
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • A Fictional Entity, such as “Achilles” or “Zeus”.
  • an Abstract Entity, such as an imaginary number or a mathematical function.
• See: Environment, Sensor.

---

---

References

2009

• (WordNet, 2009) ⇒ http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=physical%20entity
  • S: (n) physical entity (an entity that has physical existence)
• SUMO http://sigma.ontologyportal.org:4010/sigma/Browse.jsp?lang=EnglishLanguage&kb=SUMO&term=Physical
  • "An entity that has a location in space-time. Note that locations are themselves understood to have a location in space-time."
• http://sigma.ontologyportal.org:4010/sigma/Browse.jsp?lang=EnglishLanguage&kb=SUMO&term=Object
  • "Corresponds roughly to the class of ordinary objects. Examples include normal physical objects, geographical regions, and locations of Processes, the complement of Objects in the Physical class. In a 4D ontology, an Object is something whose spatiotemporal extent is thought of as dividing into spatial parts roughly parallel to the time-axis."
• http://www.isi.edu/~hobbs/bgt-space.text
  • Many "top-level" ontologies begin with a distinction between physical objects and abstract entities. By contrast, we have made it through twelve background theories without ever mentioning the distinction. The reason for this is that the core of language doesn't seem to care much about this distinction. We can be "in" a building, and we can be "in" politics and "in" trouble. We can "move" a chair from the desk to the door, and we can "move" the debate from politics to religion and "move" money from one bank account to another. Ontologies that begin with this distinction, or similar ones like Cyc's tangible-intangible distinction (Lenat and Guha, 1990), fail to capture important generalizations in language and as a result very nearly make themselves irrelevant in linguistic applications at the outset.

---