Dear Robert,
I support this.
I suggest the non-human Actors to go into CRMsci. It is a
straightforward extension of scope, and has been discussed in the past.
Non-human actors cannot be hold liable, and will not report. They are
obviously a sibling to the human actors, and fall under a common
generalization. In the same way, we have generalized over physical
things in CRMsci.
I think any opinion that animals in general cannot take intentional
actions has been proven non-sense. Conversely, human actions are often
enough instinct driven.
So far, I do not think we have evidence of conceptual objects created by
non-human actors. Whales may turn out having oral traditions in the
future. Bird songs are, however, partially tradition and not innate, but
we miss the creator individual...
Best,
Martin
On 9/21/2021 5:13 PM, Robert Sanderson via Crm-sig wrote:
Dear all,
In working with our natural history museum, we have a need to assign
non-human "actors" to "activities", which is not currently possible.
I think the easiest case to discuss is the construction of a
(collected) nest by a (known individual) bird.
We have an identity for the bird (and indeed, we have the remains of
the bird!) and we have an identity for the nest that the bird
constructed. We can estimate the time when the nest was made, and we
know exactly where it was made (due to where it was collected from).
For example:
https://collections.peabody.yale.edu/search/Record/YPM-ORN-131036
<https://collections.peabody.yale.edu/search/Record/YPM-ORN-131036>
Or a dinosaur nest, where the adult and the eggs and the nest are
preserved.
If the bird (or dinosaur) could be an Actor, then it would be easy -
the bird carried out a Production, during the TimeSpan, which produced
the (coughcough)MadeObject, at the Place. However the only thing that
can carry out activities is a human or group thereof.
Similarly, the nest might have been built by a mated pair of birds,
thereby requiring a Group-like construct for non-human actors as well.
At the moment it seems like the best we can do is
(beginning-of-existence-of-nest) P12 occurred in the presence of
(bird-as-biological-object), which seems woefully inadequate
semantically as it likely occurred in the presence of a lot of things,
including other birds that didn't actually do anything. The closer
subproperty is P11 had participant, which we can't use as birds cannot
be actors.
This might also relate to other discussions, in particular:
* Instruments -- the instrument is somehow more responsible for the
measurement than the thing being measured. It is at least
"instrumental in" the measurement, be it digitally or mechanically.
* Bias -- that animals cannot take intentional actions is a pretty
biased viewpoint. Canis virum mordet, not only vir canem mordet. This
might be extended to un-observable agents -- a culture might believe
that a ghost, spirit, god, or other non-physical entity carried out
some action.
* Software "agents" -- even if the software is acting totally
deterministically at the behest of another actor, a hard determinist
might argue the same for humans.
We could add a property either something like "instrumental in" with a
broad range (Persistent Item, as super-class of Actor?) that is less
about intent and responsibility, and more concerned with the
required-ness of the entity for the event. Or we could go further and
create some new classes between E77 and E39 that allow limited
performance of activities by non Humans.
Rob
--
Rob Sanderson
Director for Cultural Heritage Metadata
Yale University
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--
------------------------------------
Dr. Martin Doerr
Honorary Head of the
Center for Cultural Informatics
Information Systems Laboratory
Institute of Computer Science
Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
N.Plastira 100, Vassilika Vouton,
GR70013 Heraklion,Crete,Greece
Vox:+30(2810)391625
Email: [email protected]
Web-site: http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl
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