About the Unreal

John Beverley; Jim Logan; Barry Smith

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arXiv · 2506.06284

About the Unreal

John Beverley·Jim Logan·Barry Smith

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Abstract

This paper introduces a framework for representing information about entities that do not exist or may never exist, such as those involving fictional entities, blueprints, simulations, and future scenarios. Traditional approaches that introduce "dummy instances" or rely on modal logic are criticized, and a proposal is defended in which such cases are modeled using the intersections of actual types rather than specific non existent tokens. The paper positions itself within the Basic Formal Ontology and its realist commitments, emphasizing the importance of practical, implementable solutions over purely metaphysical or philosophical proposals, arguing that existing approaches to non existent entities either overcommit to metaphysical assumptions or introduce computational inefficiencies that hinder applications. By developing a structured ontology driven approach to unreal patterns, the paper aims to provide a useful and computationally viable means of handling references to hypothetical or non existent entities.

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John Beverley, Jim Logan, Barry Smith. 2025-04-28. About the Unreal. https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06284

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