Misplaced Pages

#584415

99-402: Artificial life studies the fundamental processes of living systems in artificial environments in order to gain a deeper understanding of the complex information processing that define such systems. These topics are broad, but often include evolutionary dynamics , emergent properties of collective systems, biomimicry , as well as related issues about the philosophy of the nature of life and

198-413: A system . They are said to be open self-organizing and said to interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information , energy and matter . Multiple theories of living systems have been proposed. Such theories attempt to map general principles for how all living systems work. Some scientists have proposed in the last few decades that a general theory of living systems

297-450: A "reciprocity of influence," and a reciprocal relation with environment is arguably as important for understanding life as it is for understanding ecosystems. As Harold J. Morowitz (1992) explains it, life is a property of an ecological system rather than a single organism or species. He argues that an ecosystemic definition of life is preferable to a strictly biochemical or physical one. Robert Ulanowicz (2009) highlights mutualism as

396-438: A book is made up of two covers and the pages between them. Each of these components is itself constituted of smaller parts, like molecules , atoms , and elementary particles . Mereology studies the relation between parts and wholes. One position in mereology says that every collection of entities forms a whole. According to another view, this is only the case for collections that fulfill certain requirements, for instance, that

495-433: A bundle that includes the properties yellow, sour, and round. According to traditional bundle theory, the bundled properties are universals, meaning that the same property may belong to several different bundles. According to trope bundle theory, properties are particular entities that belong to a single bundle. Some ontologies focus not on distinct objects but on interrelatedness. According to relationalism, all of reality

594-574: A comprehensive inventory of reality in which every entity belongs to exactly one category. Some philosophers, like Aristotle , say that entities belonging to different categories exist in distinct ways. Others, like John Duns Scotus , insist that there are no differences in the mode of being, meaning that everything exists in the same way . A related dispute is whether some entities have a higher degree of being than others, an idea already found in Plato 's work. The more common view in contemporary philosophy

693-515: A creature's modules (leg type A moves up and down with a frequency of X, which interacts with other legs to create motion). Generally, these are simulators that emphasize user creation and accessibility over mutation and evolution. Organisms are generally constructed with pre-defined and fixed behaviors that are controlled by various parameters that mutate. That is, each organism contains a collection of numbers or other finite parameters. Each parameter controls one or several aspects of an organism in

792-504: A different sense, for example, as abstract or fictional objects. Scientific realists say that the scientific description of the world is an accurate representation of reality. It is of particular relevance in regard to things that cannot be directly observed by humans but are assumed to exist by scientific theories, like electrons, forces, and laws of nature. Scientific anti-realism says that scientific theories are not descriptions of reality but instruments to predict observations and

891-412: A major subfield of applied ontology, studies social kinds, like money , gender , society , and language . It aims to determine the nature and essential features of these concepts while also examining their mode of existence. According to a common view, social kinds are useful constructions to describe the complexities of social life. This means that they are not pure fictions but, at the same time, lack

990-542: A person thinks about the Loch Ness Monster then the Loch Ness Monster is the intentional object of this thought . People can think about existing and non-existing objects. This makes it difficult to assess the ontological status of intentional objects . Ontological dependence is a relation between entities. An entity depends ontologically on another entity if the first entity cannot exist without

1089-448: A preliminary discipline that provides a complete inventory of reality while metaphysics examines the features and structure of the entities in this inventory. Another conception says that metaphysics is about real being while ontology examines possible being or the concept of being. It is not universally accepted that there is a clear boundary between metaphysics and ontology. Some philosophers use both terms as synonyms. The etymology of

SECTION 10

#1732791001585

1188-463: A property while being east of is a relation, as in " Kathmandu is a city" and "Kathmandu is east of New Delhi ". Relations are often divided into internal and external relations . Internal relations depend only on the properties of the objects they connect, like the relation of resemblance . External relations express characteristics that go beyond what the connected objects are like, such as spatial relations. Substances play an important role in

1287-524: A real part of objects. Relational ontologies are common in certain forms of nominalism that reject the existence of universal properties. Hierarchical ontologies state that the world is organized into levels. Entities on all levels are real but low-level entities are more fundamental than high-level entities. This means that they can exist without high-level entities while high-level entities cannot exist without low-level entities. One hierarchical ontology says that elementary particles are more fundamental than

1386-477: A simulation. The simulation then offers the possibility to analyse new and different lifelike systems. Vladimir Georgievich Red'ko proposed to generalize this distinction to the modeling of any process, leading to the more general distinction of "processes as we know them" and "processes as they could be". At present, the commonly accepted definition of life does not consider any current alife simulations or software to be alive, and they do not constitute part of

1485-402: A slightly different sense, monism contrasts with pluralism as a view not about the number of basic types but the number of entities. In this sense, monism is the controversial position that only a single all-encompassing entity exists in all of reality. Pluralism is more commonly accepted and says that several distinct entities exist. The historically influential substance-attribute ontology

1584-410: A specific ontological theory within this discipline. It can also mean an inventory or a conceptual scheme of a particular domain, such as the ontology of genes . In this context, an inventory is a comprehensive list of elements. A conceptual scheme is a framework of the key concepts and their relationships. Ontology is closely related to metaphysics but the exact relation of these two disciplines

1683-468: A theory of reality but as a game governed by rules of string manipulation. Modal realism is the theory that in addition to the actual world, there are countless possible worlds as real and concrete as the actual world. The primary difference is that the actual world is inhabited by us while other possible worlds are inhabited by our counterparts . Modal anti-realists reject this view and argue that possible worlds do not have concrete reality but exist in

1782-502: A tree, a car, and a planet. They have causal powers and can affect each other, like when a car hits a tree and both are deformed in the process. Abstract objects, by contrast, are outside space and time, such as the number 7 and the set of integers . They lack causal powers and do not undergo changes. The existence and nature of abstract objects remain subjects of philosophical debate. Concrete objects encountered in everyday life are complex entities composed of various parts. For example,

1881-509: A view referred to as moral nihilism . Monocategorical theories say that there is only one fundamental category, meaning that every single entity belongs to the same universal class. For example, some forms of nominalism state that only concrete particulars exist while some forms of bundle theory state that only properties exist. Polycategorical theories, by contrast, hold that there is more than one basic category, meaning that entities are divided into two or more fundamental classes. They take

1980-446: A well-defined way. These simulations have creatures that learn and grow using neural nets or a close derivative. Emphasis is often, although not always, on learning rather than on natural selection. Mathematical models of complex systems are of three types: black-box (phenomenological), white-box (mechanistic, based on the first principles ) and grey-box (mixtures of phenomenological and mechanistic models). In black-box models,

2079-558: Is a comprehensive framework for the standardized representation of gene-related information across species and databases. Formal ontology is the study of objects in general while focusing on their abstract structures and features. It divides objects into different categories based on the forms they exemplify. Formal ontologists often rely on the tools of formal logic to express their findings in an abstract and general manner. Formal ontology contrasts with material ontology, which distinguishes between different areas of objects and examines

SECTION 20

#1732791001585

2178-438: Is a general term for the presence of the typical closures found in organisms; the typical closures are a membrane and an autocatalytic set in the cell and that an organism is any system with an organisation that complies with an operator type that is at least as complex as the cell. Life can be modelled as a network of inferior negative feedbacks of regulatory mechanisms subordinated to a superior positive feedback formed by

2277-655: Is a general theory about the existence of all living systems, their structure , interaction , behavior and development , intended to formalize the concept of life. According to Miller's 1978 book Living Systems , such a system must contain each of twenty "critical subsystems" defined by their functions. Miller considers living systems as a type of system . Below the level of living systems, he defines space and time , matter and energy , information and entropy , levels of organization , and physical and conceptual factors, and above living systems ecological, planetary and solar systems, galaxies, etc. Miller's central thesis

2376-404: Is a polycategorical theory. It says that reality is at its most fundamental level made up of unanalyzable substances that are characterized by universals, such as the properties an individual substance has or relations that exist between substances. The closely related to substratum theory says that each concrete object is made up of properties and a substratum. The difference is that the substratum

2475-412: Is a related method in phenomenological ontology that aims to identify the essential features of different types of objects. Phenomenologists start by imagining an example of the investigated type. They proceed by varying the imagined features to determine which ones cannot be changed, meaning they are essential. The transcendental method begins with a simple observation that a certain entity exists. In

2574-405: Is able to regulate and control metabolism and energy supply and contains at least one subsystem that functions as an information carrier ( genetic information ). Cells as self-sustaining units are parts of different populations that are involved in the unidirectional and irreversible open-ended process known as evolution . Ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It

2673-587: Is alive is found in philosophy and religion, but the first scientific discussion of it was by the Scottish geologist James Hutton . In 1785, he stated that Earth was a superorganism and that its proper study should be physiology . The Gaia hypothesis, proposed in the 1960s by James Lovelock , suggests that life on Earth functions as a single organism that defines and maintains environmental conditions necessary for its survival. A systems view of life treats environmental fluxes and biological fluxes together as

2772-415: Is associated with the problem of the necessity of an a priori basic knowledge of the modeling subject. The deterministic logical cellular automata are necessary but not sufficient condition of a white-box model. The second necessary prerequisite of a white-box model is the presence of the physical ontology of the object under study. The white-box modeling represents an automatic hyper-logical inference from

2871-574: Is between analytic and speculative ontology. Analytic ontology examines the types and categories of being to determine what kinds of things could exist and what features they would have. Speculative ontology aims to determine which entities actually exist, for example, whether there are numbers or whether time is an illusion. Metaontology studies the underlying concepts, assumptions, and methods of ontology. Unlike other forms of ontology, it does not ask "what exists" but "what does it mean for something to exist" and "how can people determine what exists". It

2970-706: Is closely related to fundamental ontology , an approach developed by philosopher Martin Heidegger that seeks to uncover the meaning of being. The term realism is used for various theories that affirm that some kind of phenomenon is real or has mind-independent existence. Ontological realism is the view that there are objective facts about what exists and what the nature and categories of being are. Ontological realists do not make claims about what those facts are, for example, whether elementary particles exist. They merely state that there are mind-independent facts that determine which ontological theories are true. This idea

3069-479: Is controversial whether a more substantial analysis of the concept or meaning of being is possible. One proposal understands being as a property possessed by every entity. Critics argue that a thing without being cannot have properties. This means that properties presuppose being and cannot explain it. Another suggestion is that all beings share a set of essential features. According to the Eleatic principle , "power

Artificial life - Misplaced Pages Continue

3168-436: Is denied by ontological anti-realists, also called ontological deflationists, who say that there are no substantive facts one way or the other. According to philosopher Rudolf Carnap , for example, ontological statements are relative to language and depend on the ontological framework of the speaker. This means that there are no framework-independent ontological facts since different frameworks provide different views while there

3267-507: Is disputed. A traditionally influential characterization asserts that ontology is a subdiscipline of metaphysics. According to this view, metaphysics is the study of various aspects of fundamental reality, whereas ontology restricts itself to the most general features of reality. This view sees ontology as general metaphysics, which is to be distinguished from special metaphysics focused on more specific subject matters, like God , mind , and value . A different conception understands ontology as

3366-399: Is essential if an entity must have it; it is accidental if the entity can exist without it. For instance, having three sides is an essential property of a triangle, whereas being red is an accidental property. Relations are ways how two or more entities stand to one another. Unlike properties, they apply to several entities and characterize them as a group. For example, being a city is

3465-603: Is material. This means that mental phenomena, such as beliefs, emotions, and consciousness, either do not exist or exist as aspects of matter, like brain states. Idealists take the converse perspective, arguing that everything is mental. They may understand physical phenomena, like rocks, trees, and planets, as ideas or perceptions of conscious minds. Neutral monism occupies a middle ground by saying that both mind and matter are derivative phenomena. Dualists state that mind and matter exist as independent principles, either as distinct substances or different types of properties . In

3564-456: Is necessary that three plus two equals five". Possibility and necessity contrast with actuality, which describes what is the case, as in " Doha is the capital of Qatar ". Ontologists often use the concept of possible worlds to analyze possibility and necessity. A possible world is a complete and consistent way how things could have been. For example, Haruki Murakami was born in 1949 in the actual world but there are possible worlds in which he

3663-455: Is no objectively right or wrong framework. In a more narrow sense, realism refers to the existence of certain types of entities. Realists about universals say that universals have mind-independent existence. According to Platonic realists , universals exist not only independent of the mind but also independent of particular objects that exemplify them. This means that the universal red could exist by itself even if there were no red objects in

3762-445: Is no single standard method; the diverse approaches are studied by metaontology . Conceptual analysis is a method to understand ontological concepts and clarify their meaning. It proceeds by analyzing their component parts and the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a concept applies to an entity. This information can help ontologists decide whether a certain type of entity, such as numbers, exists. Eidetic variation

3861-412: Is not characterized by properties: it is a featureless or bare particular that merely supports the properties. Various alternative ontological theories have been proposed that deny the role of substances as the foundational building blocks of reality. Stuff ontologies say that the world is not populated by distinct entities but by continuous stuff that fills space. This stuff may take various forms and

3960-402: Is often conceived as infinitely divisible. According to process ontology , processes or events are the fundamental entities. This view usually emphasizes that nothing in reality is static, meaning that being is dynamic and characterized by constant change. Bundle theories state that there are no regular objects but only bundles of co-present properties. For example, a lemon may be understood as

4059-585: Is perhaps the "most integrative" social systems theory, clearly distinguishing between matter–energy-processing and information-processing, showing how social systems are linked to biological systems. LST analyzes the irregularities or "organizational pathologies" of systems functioning (e.g., system stress and strain, feedback irregularities, information–input overload). It explicates the role of entropy in social research while it equates negentropy with information and order. It emphasizes both structure and process, as well as their interrelations. The idea that Earth

Artificial life - Misplaced Pages Continue

4158-460: Is present but not the others. According to perdurantists, change means that an earlier part exhibits different qualities than a later part. When a tree loses its leaves, for instance, there is an earlier temporal part with leaves and a later temporal part without leaves. Differential ontology is a poststructuralist approach interested in the relation between the concepts of identity and difference . It says that traditional ontology sees identity as

4257-508: Is relational at its most fundamental level. Ontic structural realism agrees with this basic idea and focuses on how these relations form complex structures. Some structural realists state that there is nothing but relations, meaning that individual objects do not exist. Others say that individual objects exist but depend on the structures in which they participate. Fact ontologies present a different approach by focusing on how entities belonging to different categories come together to constitute

4356-467: Is required to explain the nature of life. Such a general theory would arise out of the ecological and biological sciences and attempt to map general principles for how all living systems work. Instead of examining phenomena by attempting to break things down into components, a general living systems theory explores phenomena in terms of dynamic patterns of the relationships of organisms with their environment. James Grier Miller 's living systems theory

4455-417: Is studied in the field of synthetic biology . It involves research such as the creation of synthetic DNA . The term "wet" is an extension of the term " wetware ". Efforts toward "wet" artificial life focus on engineering live minimal cells from living bacteria Mycoplasma laboratorium and in building non-living biochemical cell-like systems from scratch. In May 2019, researchers reported a new milestone in

4554-444: Is that a thing either exists or not with no intermediary states or degrees. The relation between being and non-being is a frequent topic in ontology. Influential issues include the status of nonexistent objects and why there is something rather than nothing . A central distinction in ontology is between particular and universal entities. Particulars, also called individuals , are unique, non-repeatable entities, like Socrates ,

4653-443: Is that the multiple levels of living systems (cells, organs, organisms, groups, organizations, societies, supranational systems) are open systems composed of critical and mutually-dependent subsystems that process inputs, throughputs, and outputs of energy and information. Seppänen (1998) says that Miller applied general systems theory on a broad scale to describe all aspects of living systems. Bailey states that Miller's theory

4752-417: Is the mark of being", meaning that only entities with causal influence truly exist. A controversial proposal by philosopher George Berkeley suggests that all existence is mental. He expressed this immaterialism in his slogan "to be is to be perceived". Depending on the context, the term being is sometimes used with a more limited meaning to refer only to certain aspects of reality. In one sense, being

4851-521: Is the relation between a ground and the facts it explains. An ontological commitment of a person or a theory is an entity that exists according to them. For instance, a person who believes in God has an ontological commitment to God . Ontological commitments can be used to analyze which ontologies people explicitly defend or implicitly assume. They play a central role in contemporary metaphysics when trying to decide between competing theories. For example,

4950-491: Is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality . As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every entity within it. To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines what all things have in common. It also investigates how they can be grouped into basic types, such as the categories of particulars and universals . Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, like

5049-571: Is unchanging and permanent, in contrast to becoming, which implies change. Another contrast is between being, as what truly exists, and phenomena , as what appears to exist. In some contexts, being expresses the fact that something is while essence expresses its qualities or what it is like. Ontologists often divide being into fundamental classes or highest kinds, called categories of being . Proposed categories include substance, property , relation , state of affairs , and event . They can be used to provide systems of categories, which offer

SECTION 50

#1732791001585

5148-456: The Quine–Putnam indispensability argument defends mathematical Platonism , asserting that numbers exist because the best scientific theories are ontologically committed to numbers. Possibility and necessity are further topics in ontology. Possibility describes what can be the case, as in "it is possible that extraterrestrial life exists". Necessity describes what must be the case, as in "it

5247-624: The Taj Mahal , and Mars . Universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color green , the form circularity , and the virtue courage . Universals express aspects or features shared by particulars. For example, Mount Everest and Mount Fuji are particulars characterized by the universal mountain . Universals can take the form of properties or relations. Properties describe the characteristics of things. They are features or qualities possessed by an entity. Properties are often divided into essential and accidental properties . A property

5346-642: The Vaisheshika school, distinguishes between six categories: substance , quality, motion, universal, individuator, and inherence. Immanuel Kant 's transcendental idealism includes a system of twelve categories, which Kant saw as pure concepts of understanding. They are subdivided into four classes: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. In more recent philosophy, theories of categories were developed by C. S. Peirce , Edmund Husserl , Samuel Alexander , Roderick Chisholm , and E. J. Lowe . The dispute between constituent and relational ontologies concerns

5445-502: The ancient period with speculations about the nature of being and the source of the universe, including ancient Indian , Chinese , and Greek philosophy . In the modern period, philosophers conceived ontology as a distinct academic discipline and coined its name. Ontology is the study of being. It is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of existence , the features all entities have in common, and how they are divided into basic categories of being . It aims to discover

5544-413: The first principles because it is completely based on the deterministic logic and axiomatic theory of the subject. The purpose of the white-box modeling is to derive from the basic axioms a more detailed, more concrete mechanistic knowledge about the dynamics of the object under study. The necessity to formulate an intrinsic axiomatic system of the subject before creating its white-box model distinguishes

5643-427: The functional organisation of living organisms in terms of their dynamic, complex networks of metabolic, genetic, and epigenetic processes and signalling pathways . Related approaches focus on the interdependence of constraints, where constraints can be either molecular, such as enzymes, or macroscopic, such as the geometry of a bone or of the vascular system. Harris Bernstein and colleagues argued in 1983 that

5742-455: The history of philosophy , various ontological theories based on several fundamental categories have been proposed. One of the first theories of categories was suggested by Aristotle , whose system includes ten categories: substance, quantity , quality , relation, place, date, posture, state, action, and passion. An early influential system of categories in Indian philosophy, first proposed in

5841-404: The social sciences . Applied ontology is of particular relevance to information and computer science , which develop conceptual frameworks of limited domains . These frameworks are used to store information in a structured way, such as a college database tracking academic activities. Ontology is relevant to the fields of logic , theology , and anthropology . The origins of ontology lie in

5940-420: The "nonfractionability of components in an organism" as the fundamental difference between living systems and "biological machines." He summarised his views in his book Life Itself . Complex systems biology is a field of science that studies the emergence of complexity in functional organisms from the viewpoint of dynamic systems theory. The latter is also often called systems biology and aims to understand

6039-566: The Rings , and people, like the Monkey King in the novel Journey to the West . Some philosophers say that fictional objects are abstract objects and exist outside space and time. Others understand them as artifacts that are created as the works of fiction are written. Intentional objects are entities that exist within mental states , like perceptions , beliefs , and desires . For example, if

SECTION 60

#1732791001585

6138-422: The analysis of concepts and experience , the use of intuitions and thought experiments , and the integration of findings from natural science . Formal ontology is the branch of ontology investigating the most abstract features of objects. Applied ontology employs ontological theories and principles to study entities belonging to a specific area. For example, social ontology examines basic concepts used in

6237-500: The cellular automata models of white-box type from cellular automata models based on arbitrary logical rules. If cellular automata rules have not been formulated from the first principles of the subject, then such a model may have a weak relevance to the real problem. This is a list of artificial life and digital organism simulators: Hardware-based artificial life mainly consist of robots , that is, automatically guided machines able to do tasks on their own. Biochemical-based life

6336-419: The code. Use of cellular automata is common but not required. Another example could be an artificial intelligence and multi-agent system/program . Individual modules are added to a creature. These modules modify the creature's behaviors and characteristics either directly, by hard coding into the simulation (leg type A increases speed and metabolism), or indirectly, through the emergent interactions between

6435-527: The creation of a new synthetic (possibly artificial ) form of viable life , a variant of the bacteria Escherichia coli , by reducing the natural number of 64 codons in the bacterial genome to 59 codons instead, in order to encode 20 amino acids . Artificial life has had a controversial history. John Maynard Smith criticized certain artificial life work in 1994 as "fact-free science". Living system Living systems are life forms (or, more colloquially known as living things ) treated as

6534-499: The entities in the collection touch one another. The problem of material constitution asks whether or in what sense a whole should be considered a new object in addition to the collection of parts composing it. Abstract objects are closely related to fictional and intentional objects . Fictional objects are entities invented in works of fiction . They can be things, like the One Ring in J. R. R. Tolkien 's book series The Lord of

6633-570: The evolution of order in living systems and certain physical systems obeys a common fundamental principle termed the Darwinian dynamic. This was formulated by first considering how macroscopic order is generated in a simple non-biological system far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and then extending consideration to short, replicating RNA molecules. The underlying order-generating process was concluded to be basically similar for both types of systems. Gerard Jagers' operator theory proposes that life

6732-529: The evolutionary process of any ecosystem . However, different opinions about artificial life's potential have arisen: Program-based simulations contain organisms with a "genome" language. This language is more often in the form of a Turing complete computer program than actual biological DNA. Assembly derivatives are the most common languages used. An organism "lives" when its code is executed, and there are usually various methods allowing self-replication . Mutations are generally implemented as random changes to

6831-430: The features characteristic of a specific area. Examples are ideal spatial beings in the area of geometry and living beings in the area of biology. Descriptive ontology aims to articulate the conceptual scheme underlying how people ordinarily think about the world. Prescriptive ontology departs from common conceptions of the structure of reality and seeks to formulate a new and better conceptualization. Another contrast

6930-555: The following step, it studies the ontological repercussions of this observation by examining how it is possible or which conditions are required for this entity to exist. Another approach is based on intuitions in the form of non-inferential impressions about the correctness of general principles. These principles can be used as the foundation on which an ontological system is built and expanded using deductive reasoning . A further intuition-based method relies on thought experiments to evoke new intuitions. This happens by imagining

7029-409: The form of systems of categories, which list the highest genera of being to provide a comprehensive inventory of everything. The closely related discussion between monism and dualism is about the most fundamental types that make up reality. According to monism, there is only one kind of thing or substance on the most basic level. Materialism is an influential monist view; it says that everything

7128-400: The foundational building blocks of the world and characterize reality as a whole in its most general aspects. In this regard, ontology contrasts with individual sciences like biology and astronomy , which restrict themselves to a limited domain of entities, such as living entities and celestial phenomena. In some contexts, the term ontology refers not to the general study of being but to

7227-427: The history of ontology as the particular entities that underlie and support properties and relations. They are often considered the fundamental building blocks of reality that can exist on their own, while entities like properties and relations cannot exist without substances. Substances persist through changes as they acquire or lose properties. For example, when a tomato ripens, it loses the property green and acquires

7326-472: The individual-based (mechanistic) mechanisms of a complex dynamic system remain hidden. Black-box models are completely nonmechanistic. They are phenomenological and ignore a composition and internal structure of a complex system. Due to the non-transparent nature of the model, interactions of subsystems cannot be investigated. In contrast, a white-box model of a complex dynamic system has ‘transparent walls’ and directly shows underlying mechanisms. All events at

7425-588: The internal structure of concrete particular objects. Constituent ontologies say that objects have an internal structure with properties as their component parts. Bundle theories are an example of this position: they state that objects are bundles of properties. This view is rejected by relational ontologies, which say that objects have no internal structure, meaning that properties do not inhere in them but are externally related to them. According to one analogy, objects are like pin-cushions and properties are pins that can be stuck to objects and removed again without becoming

7524-422: The key to understand the systemic, order-generating behaviour of life and ecosystems. Robert Rosen devoted a large part of his career, from 1958 onwards, to developing a comprehensive theory of life as a self-organizing complex system, "closed to efficient causation". He defined a system component as "a unit of organization; a part with a function, i.e., a definite relation between part and whole." He identified

7623-603: The level at which it exists. The ontological theories of endurantism and perdurantism aim to explain how material objects persist through time. Endurantism is the view that material objects are three-dimensional entities that travel through time while being fully present in each moment. They remain the same even when they gain or lose properties as they change. Perdurantism is the view that material objects are four-dimensional entities that extend not just through space but also through time. This means that they are composed of temporal parts and, at any moment, only one part of them

7722-418: The macroscopic objects they compose, like chairs and tables. Other hierarchical theories assert that substances are more fundamental than their properties and that nature is more fundamental than culture. Flat ontologies, by contrast, deny that any entity has a privileged status, meaning that all entities exist on the same level. For them, the main question is only whether something exists rather than identifying

7821-406: The micro-, meso- and macro-levels of a dynamic system are directly visible at all stages of a white-box model's evolution. In most cases, mathematical modelers use the heavy black-box mathematical methods, which cannot produce mechanistic models of complex dynamic systems. Grey-box models are intermediate and combine black-box and white-box approaches. Creation of a white-box model of complex system

7920-420: The more basic term by first characterizing things in terms of their essential features and then elaborating differences based on this conception. Differential ontologists, by contrast, privilege difference and say that the identity of a thing is a secondary determination that depends on how this thing differs from other things. Object-oriented ontology belongs to the school of speculative realism and examines

8019-672: The most basic level. Platonic realism asserts that universals have objective existence. Conceptualism says that universals only exist in the mind while nominalism denies their existence. There are similar disputes about mathematical objects , unobservable objects assumed by scientific theories, and moral facts . Materialism says that, fundamentally, there is only matter while dualism asserts that mind and matter are independent principles. According to some ontologists, there are no objective answers to ontological questions but only perspectives shaped by different linguistic practices. Ontology uses diverse methods of inquiry . They include

8118-472: The most fundamental aspects of life. A closely related approach, relational biology, is concerned mainly with understanding life processes in terms of the most important relations, and categories of such relations among the essential functional components of organisms; for multicellular organisms, this has been defined as "categorical biology", or a model representation of organisms as a category theory of biological relations, as well as an algebraic topology of

8217-406: The nature and role of objects. It sees objects as the fundamental building blocks of reality. As a flat ontology, it denies that some entities have a more fundamental form of existence than others. It uses this idea to argue that objects exist independently of human thought and perception. Methods of ontology are ways of conducting ontological inquiry and deciding between competing theories. There

8316-422: The objective or mind-independent reality of natural phenomena like elementary particles, lions, and stars. In the fields of computer science , information science , and knowledge representation , applied ontology is interested in the development of formal frameworks to encode and store information about a limited domain of entities in a structured way. A related application in genetics is Gene Ontology , which

8415-399: The outcomes of experiments. Moral realists claim that there exist mind-independent moral facts. According to them, there are objective principles that determine which behavior is morally right. Moral anti-realists either claim that moral principles are subjective and differ between persons and cultures, a position known as moral relativism , or outright deny the existence of moral facts,

8514-479: The person Socrates . Universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color green . Another contrast is between concrete objects existing in space and time, like a tree, and abstract objects existing outside space and time, like the number 7. Systems of categories aim to provide a comprehensive inventory of reality, employing categories such as substance , property , relation , state of affairs , and event . Ontologists disagree about which entities exist on

8613-525: The potential of expansion and reproduction. Stuart Kauffman defines a living system as an autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle . This definition is extended by the evolution of novel functions over time. Budisa , Kubyshkin and Schmidt defined cellular life as an organizational unit resting on four pillars/cornerstones: (i) energy , (ii) metabolism , (iii) information and (iv) form . This system

8712-406: The property red . States of affairs are complex particular entities that have several other entities as their components. The state of affairs "Socrates is wise" has two components: the individual Socrates and the property wise . States of affairs that correspond to reality are called facts . Facts are truthmakers of statements, meaning that whether a statement is true or false depends on

8811-426: The same features, such as perfect identical twins. This is also called exact similarity and indiscernibility . Numerical identity, by contrast, means that there is only a single entity. For example, if Fatima is the mother of Leila and Hugo then Leila's mother is numerically identical to Hugo's mother. Another distinction is between synchronic and diachronic identity. Synchronic identity relates an entity to itself at

8910-441: The same time. Diachronic identity relates an entity to itself at different times, as in "the woman who bore Leila three years ago is the same woman who bore Hugo this year". There are different and sometimes overlapping ways to divide ontology into branches. Pure ontology focuses on the most abstract topics associated with the concept and nature of being. It is not restricted to a specific domain of entities and studies existence and

9009-407: The second entity. For instance, the surface of an apple cannot exist without the apple. An entity is ontologically independent if it does not depend on anything else, meaning that it is fundamental and can exist on its own. Ontological dependence plays a central role in ontology and its attempt to describe reality on its most fundamental level. It is closely related to metaphysical grounding , which

9108-420: The structure of reality as a whole. Pure ontology contrasts with applied ontology , also called domain ontology. Applied ontology examines the application of ontological theories and principles to specific disciplines and domains, often in the field of science. It considers ontological problems in regard to specific entities such as matter , mind , numbers , God , and cultural artifacts. Social ontology ,

9207-482: The underlying facts. Events are particular entities that occur in time, like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first moon landing . They usually involve some kind of change, like the lawn becoming dry. In some cases, no change occurs, like the lawn staying wet. Complex events, also called processes , are composed of a sequence of events. Concrete objects are entities that exist in space and time, such as

9306-460: The use of lifelike properties in artistic works. The modeling philosophy of artificial life strongly differs from traditional modeling by studying not only "life as we know it" but also "life as it could be". A traditional model of a biological system will focus on capturing its most important parameters. In contrast, an alife modeling approach will generally seek to decipher the most simple and general principles underlying life and implement them in

9405-556: The word ontology traces back to the ancient Greek terms ὄντως ( ontos , meaning ' being ' ) and λογία ( logia , meaning ' study of ' ), literally, ' the study of being ' . The ancient Greeks did not use the term ontology , which was coined by philosophers in the 17th century. Being, or existence , is the main topic of ontology. It is one of the most general and fundamental concepts, encompassing all of reality and every entity within it. In its broadest sense, being only contrasts with non-being or nothingness. It

9504-808: The world is entirely composed of particular objects. Mathematical realism , a closely related view in the philosophy of mathematics , says that mathematical facts exist independently of human language, thought, and practices and are discovered rather than invented. According to mathematical Platonism, this is the case because of the existence of mathematical objects , like numbers and sets. Mathematical Platonists say that mathematical objects are as real as physical objects, like atoms and stars, even though they are not accessible to empirical observation . Influential forms of mathematical anti-realism include conventionalism, which says that mathematical theories are trivially true simply by how mathematical terms are defined, and game formalism , which understands mathematics not as

9603-452: The world. Aristotelian realism, also called moderate realism , rejects this idea and says that universals only exist as long as there are objects that exemplify them. Conceptualism , by contrast, is a form of anti-realism, stating that universals only exist in the mind as concepts that people use to understand and categorize the world. Nominalists defend a strong form of anti-realism by saying that universals have no existence. This means that

9702-491: The world. Facts, also known as states of affairs, are complex entities; for example, the fact that the Earth is a planet consists of the particular object the Earth and the property being a planet . Fact ontologies state that facts are the fundamental constituents of reality, meaning that objects, properties, and relations cannot exist on their own and only form part of reality to the extent that they participate in facts. In

9801-420: Was born at a different date. Using this idea, possible world semantics says that a sentence is possibly true if it is true in at least one possible world. A sentence is necessarily true if it is true in all possible worlds. In ontology, identity means that two things are the same. Philosophers distinguish between qualitative and numerical identity. Two entities are qualitatively identical if they have exactly

#584415