Object Structures and Descriptions

While reasoning an object we often fall into a trap of thinking about the attributes and methods of the object (in a typical Object Oriented way). But reasoning about an object goes beyond the attributes and methods. While reasoning an object we need to consider the following:

1. Object fall into categories. eg. My car is a Hatchback. My Pet is doberman. etc But then we also have instances where an object is part of multiple categories like I am an Employee, Blogger and a Husband.
2. Categories can be more general or more specific in nature eg. Physician and Surgeons are types of Doctors, A Father is a parent etc.
3. In addition to generalization being common for categories with simple names, it is also natural for those with more complex description. A Contract employee is an employee. A family with at least one child is not childless etc.
4. Object have parts and these parts have multiplicity of 1 or more. Books have Title, Humans have 2 arms, Cars have 4 wheels etc.
5. The relationship among an object's parts is essential to its being considered a member of the category. A pile of book is not same as catalog of book.
   

These are few things we need consider while deriving a framework for knowledge representation. Then there are additional complexities added to it as if the same word is used as noun or pronoun. He is Helium or He refers to another person depends on the context where the word is used.

Until Next Time....