Knowledge enters as a term or an assertion, never as a new field

Answers Metaphysics · Deontics

Material arriving from outside this model enters in one of three forms and no other. A row carries an identifier, a label and a definition. An assertion uses a relationship that already exists; declaring a new one first requires its endpoint kinds, a cardinality, a claim, an inverse and a commitment that licenses it, so nothing can introduce structure merely by arriving. A property is the rarest of the three: it enters only where a commitment licenses it across an entire evidence class, says what it means, and a check tests every row of that class for it. A field outside the licensed set is not admitted, whatever supplied it.

What goes wrong without it

A model that ingests from elsewhere ends up shaped by what arrived rather than by what it decided. A field added because one import happened to carry it becomes a field every later term is read against, and nothing removes it afterwards because nothing remembers why it was there. Fixing the forms in advance is what lets an outside source enlarge what the model knows without altering what it is.

What proves it — 1

Each is a gate the build runs: a check inside a ring, a whole ring, or an eval beside them. A build stops at the first that refuses.

• registry integritylicensed fields
  Every file conforms to the one declared schema before any other law runs: a row carries only the fields the model licenses, and every field has the type and, where the set is closed, the value the schema states, so material arriving from outside cannot introduce structure merely by arriving.

Derived from — 2

• Thomas R. GruberToward Principles for the Design of Ontologies Used for Knowledge Sharing
• Dublin Core Metadata InitiativeThe Singapore Framework for Dublin Core Application Profiles

Where this model stands

Four fields every row owes, and five licensed ones: the source reference that admits a record, the exemplar mark, the public reference a world record stands on, the contract status a measure carries when its source does not yet exist, and the alternate labels a term is also known by.

Where each licensed field may appear is policed by the commitment that licenses it; that no other field appears at all is policed here.

A relationship cannot arrive with an import: the kind file that asserts a verb it does not declare is rejected before any check runs.

The licensed set is the schema's declaration of a row, and the build refuses a stray field before any law runs.

What it does not claim

A sixth licensed field takes the same bar the fifth met: a commitment that licenses it across a whole evidence class and a check on every row, never a source that happens to carry it.

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