Towards an Ontological Theory of Physical Objects

We present a logical theory based on a fundamental distinction between objects and their substrates, i.e. chunks of matter and regions of space, whose purpose is to establish the basis of a general ontology of space, matter and physical objects for the domain of mechanical artifacts. An extensional mereological framework is assumed for substrates, while physical objects are allowed to change their spatial and material substrate while keeping their identity. Besides the parthood relation, simple self-connected regions and congruence are adopted as primitives for the description of space. Only tridimensional regions are assumed in the domain.