by Joshua Cheatham

In our ongoing work to perfect the Brain’s understanding of ontology, we’ve delved into the nature of parts.  We’ve explored the following questions:  What is a part?  How can we classify parts?  Are all parts created equal?

Now for you and I this may seem self-evident; a part is a subdivision of a larger, complete entity.  Parts are parts.  But there’s actually more to it than that.  For example, if part of me is my arm and I am part of the soccer team does it make sense to say that my arm is part of the soccer team?  Not really.  But if my finger is part of my hand and my hand is part of me then it does make sense to say that my finger is part of me.  These two examples signal that there is something deeper going on – that there are different types of parts.

In our research we’ve identified several more types of parts than those mentioned above.  And we’ve incorporated that research into the code that makes up the Neuric Brain, so that it can faithfully conceive and communicate its understanding of subsets and subdivisions and other types of parts.

So while these things may seem like common sense to you and I, closer inspection reveals that we often overlook the fact that our understanding of the nature of things is much more nuanced and robust than we let ourselves know.  Yet it is that same nuance and vigor that we are incorporating into the Neuric Brain.