The Mereological Structure of Informational Entities

Adrien Barton (1, 2, 3) , Fumiaki Toyoshima (2) , Laure Vieu (1, 4, 3) , Paul Fabry (2) , Jean-François Ethier (2)

1 IRIT-MELODI - MEthodes et ingénierie des Langues, des Ontologies et du DIscours
2 UdeS - Université de Sherbrooke
3 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 ISTC-CNR - Istituto di Scienze e Tecnologie della Cognizione [Trento]

This article provides the basis of a formal axiomatic system for a mereology of informational entities based on the idea of information fillers that can occupy information slots, such as the same word that can be used in different sentences. It is inspired by Karen Bennett's mereological system that enables a whole to have a part "twice over", but differs from it in several key points, such as the acceptance of empty slots, and the possibility for slots to have slots. Information slots are analyzed as informational entities that can carry aboutness.

Mots clés: Mereology; Information content entity; Informational structure

Domaines: Philosophie; Intelligence artificielle [cs.AI]

Adrien Barton, Fumiaki Toyoshima, Laure Vieu, Paul Fabry, Jean-François Ethier. The Mereological Structure of Informational Entities. Formal Ontology in Information Systems. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (FOIS 2020), Volume 330: Formal Ontology in Information Systems, IOS Press, pp.201-215, 2020, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, 978-1-64368-128-3. ⟨10.3233/FAIA200672⟩. ⟨hal-03041523⟩