On a notion of extensionality for artifacts (Q2865080)

From the authors' abstract: In mereology, extensionality ``is expressed by the statement that two things are identical if their parts are the same. However, building a thing from parts may proceed in various ways and this, unexpectedly, yields various extensionality principles. Also, building a thing may lead to things identical with respect to parts but distinct with respect, e.g., to usage. We address the question of extensionality for artifacts, i.e., things produced in some assembling or creative process in order to satisfy a chosen purpose of usage, and we formulate the extensionality principle for artifacts which takes into account the assembling process and requires for identity of two artifacts that assembling graphs for the two be isomorphic in a specified sense. In parallel, we consider the design process and design things showing the canonical correspondence between abstracta as design products and concreta as artifacts. In the end, we discuss approximate artifacts as a result of assembling with spare parts which analysis does involve rough mereology.''NEWLINENEWLINEBesides an informal discussion, the paper contains several definitions of mereological notions, artifacts, approximate artifacts, and some elementary consequences of them; there are no significant mathematical results in it.