I've been looking into some OWL ontologies (CHEBI, OBOE) and wondered why siblings were not modelled as disjoint, even when nothing could be both at the same time (e.g. air and water sample). I assume this is done on purpose and not due to laziness, yet I don't grasp the benefit.
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This is probably a bit too broad (there are lots of possible answers) and opinion based (there might be different opinions about *why* this is the case), and it would probably lead to some discussion, as there's not a clear right or wrong answer. It's probably not a great fit for Stack Overflow, but it *is* an interesting question, and you might ask it at answers.semanticweb.com, where it would be more on-topic. – Joshua Taylor Oct 30 '14 at 12:36
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1That said, I expect that there are a few primary reasons: (i) in typical human discourse, we leave disjointness implicit, i.e., we *assume* that it is *understood*, and as a result, when we move to a formal logic, we forget to make it explicit; (ii) it can be expensive for reasoners to have to reason about disjointness; (iii) sometimes it's not so clear (e.g., in your example, if I fill a balloon on a foggy morning, I may very well have something that can serve as a both an air and a water sample. – Joshua Taylor Oct 30 '14 at 12:40
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Thank you for the suggestion, I reposted the question there. – johannes Oct 30 '14 at 17:34
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In case any one finds it here and is interested, it's http://answers.semanticweb.com/questions/30844/why-is-disjointness-avoided-in-owl-ontologies. – Joshua Taylor Oct 30 '14 at 18:15