]> 2008/06/10 OpenCyc Knowledge Base Copyright© 2001-2008 Cycorp, Inc., http://www.cyc.com/, Austin, TX, USA This file contains an OWL representation of information contained in the OpenCyc Knowledge Base. The content of this OWL file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license whose text can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode. The content of this OWL file, including the OpenCyc content it represents, constitutes the "Work" referred to in the Creative Commons license. The terms of this license equally apply to, without limitation, renamings and other logically equivalent reformulations of the content of this OWL file (or portions thereof) in any natural or formal language, as well as to derivations of this content or inclusion of it in other ontologies. externalID A unique, language-neutral, variable-sized identifier for a concept that can be used to refer unambiguously to that concept across OWL exports or across Cyc inference engines. label A natural-language representation for a concept that is both human readable and readable by the Cyc inference engine. These terms are not guaranteed to refer to the same concept across time but are guaranteed to be consistent within a particular OWL export. Use 'cycAnnot:externalID' for unambiguously referring to a concept across OWL exports or across Cyc inference engines. A <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rAmoSCGJbQdiSXZJvYiNhkQ" class="cyc_term">CycVocabularyTopic</a> and a <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rtGXkHpNaEdqAAAACs0uFOQ" class="cyc_term">KBDependentCollection</a>. basics-fundamental-topic Basics-Fundamental-Topic A specialization of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvqZFUZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">TruthFunction</a> (q.v.). Each instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA1pwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Predicate</a> is either a property of things (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvV56npwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">UnaryPredicate</a>) or a relationship holding between two or more things. Like other truth-functions, predicates, or rather the expressions that represent or denote them, are used to form sentences. More precisely, any CycL expression that denotes an instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA1pwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Predicate</a> (and only such an expression) can appear in the "0th" (or "arg0") position (i.e. as the term following the opening parenthesis) of a <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwTB1DpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CycLAtomicSentence</a> (q.v.). Important specializations of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA1pwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Predicate</a> include <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvV56npwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">UnaryPredicate</a>, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBApwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">BinaryPredicate</a>, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBAZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">TernaryPredicate</a>, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBAJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">QuaternaryPredicate</a>, and <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA_5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">QuintaryPredicate</a>. Note that, despite its name, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA1pwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Predicate</a> is a collection of relations, and not a collection of expressions that represent or denote such relations. Predicate predicate type of thing Collection A specialization of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjl_ZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">SetOrCollection</a> (q.v.). This is the collection of all collections of things. Each <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAzJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Collection</a> is a kind or type of thing whose instances share a certain property, attribute, or feature. For example, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVkFc5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Cat</a> is the collection of all and only cats, and <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwOckfJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">BinaryFunction</a> is the collection of all and only functions taking two arguments. The notion of collection is fundamental to the Cyc ontology, and is thus difficult to define in a precise and substantive way. But it is instructive to compare it to the mathematical notion of a set (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvl2en5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Set_Mathematical</a>). Like a set, a collection is an <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rpJ-nSEkJQdeC8NLkYPDBBw" class="cyc_term">AbstractThing</a> (i.e. aspatial and atemporal) that is not an <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjaApwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Individual</a> (cf.), but instead has elements (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwGWaK5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">elementOf</a>). Unlike a set, however, the elements or "instances" (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a>) of a given collection can vary from context to context, and it is possible for distinct collections to have exactly the same elements (i.e. to have the same <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwN2YGZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">extent</a>) with respect to a given context. For example, the (non-reified) collections "Chordate" and "Renate" are co-extensional in the context of the present-day actual world, but have differring extents with respect to hypothetical contexts in which there exist creatures having hearts but not kidneys. This difference is sometimes summarized by saying that sets are "extensional" things and collections are "intensional" things. Many, though by no means all, of the collections reified in the Cyc ontology correspond to natural kinds or classes. It is particulary useful to reify collections that are difficult to define precisely, but about which there are many common-sense rules and other things to state. For example, it would not be worthwile to introduce a constant 'WhiteCat', both because it's easy to define the collection of white cats in terms of more general, already-reified notions (e.g. '(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwEcGC5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CollectionIntersection2Fn</a> <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVkFc5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Cat</a> <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rBjWwGHS-EdaAAACgyZzFrg" class="cyc_term">WhiteColor</a>)'), and because there's not much to say about that particular collection. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rsX6vHnS6EdaAAACgyZzFrg" class="cyc_term">WhiteCollarWorker</a>, on the other hand, is a good collection to have reified, as it is hard to define precisely, yet is a collection about which there are many things to say. Some of the many reified specializations of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAzJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Collection</a> are <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rHIBS0h_TEdaAAABQ2rksLw" class="cyc_term">FirstOrderCollection</a>, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwIE23ZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">TimeDependentCollection</a>, and <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVirnZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">ObjectType</a>. A instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVkGXJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">TaxonomicSlotForCollections</a> (q.v.) and a specialization of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVkIH5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">generalizations</a>. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a> relates a given collection (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAzJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Collection</a>) to those collections that subsume it. More precisely, <code>(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a> SUBCOL SUPERCOL)</code> means that <code>SUPERCOL</code> is a supercollection of <code>SUBCOL</code>: anything that is an instance of (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a>) <code>SUBCOL</code> is also an instance of <code>SUPERCOL</code>. For example, <code>(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a> <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjaoJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Dog</a> <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVimKJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Mammal</a>)</code> holds. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a> is one of the most commonly-occurring predicates in the Cyc Knowledge Base, and one of the relations most fundamental to the Cyc ontology. See also <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvZA-05wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">subsetOf</a>. genls is a type of Individual <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjaApwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Individual</a> is the collection of all individuals: things that are not sets or collections. Individuals might be concrete or abstract, and include (among other things) physical objects, events, numbers, relations, and groups. An instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjaApwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Individual</a> might have parts or structure (including discontinuous parts); but no individual has elements or subsets (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwGWaK5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">elementOf</a> and <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvZA-05wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">subsetOf</a>). Thus, an individual that has parts (e.g. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVj5FpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">physicalParts</a> or <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVj-BJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">groupMembers</a>) is not the same thing as either the set or the collection containing those same parts. For example, your car is an individual, but the collection of all the parts of your car is not an individual but an instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAzJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Collection</a>. This collection (unlike the car itself) is abstract: it doesn't have a location, mass, or a top speed; but it does have instances, subcollections, and supercollections. In partial contrast, the <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjmoJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Group</a> (q.v.) of parts of your car (while also not the same thing as the car itself) is an individual that has location and mass. Another example: A given company, the group consisting of all the company's employees, the collection of those employees, and the set of those employees are four distinct things, and only the first two are individuals. individual isa is a A <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAypwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">TaxonomicSlot</a> (q.v.) that relates things of any kind to collections (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAzJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Collection</a>) of which they are instances. <code>(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> THING COL)</code> means that <code>THING</code> is an instance of the collection <code>COL</code>. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> is by far the most commonly-occurring predicate in the Cyc Knowledge Base, and is one of the relations most fundamental to the Cyc ontology. An important logical feature of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> is that it "transfers through" <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a> (q.v.): <code>(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> THING COL)</code> and <code>(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a> COL SUPERCOL)</code> jointly imply <code>(<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> THING SUPERCOL)</code>. This logical feature is expressed in a rule that -- along with various other rules that also sanction the derivation of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> sentences -- has been asserted to the Knowledge Base. As a result, only a small fraction of the <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a> based ground atomic formulas (or "GAF"s; see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvcyGiZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CycLClosedAtomicSentence</a>) the Cyc system "knows" to be true have been manually asserted; the vast majority have been derived, or are derivable, automatically by the Cyc inference engine via the use of such rules. See also <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwGWaK5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">elementOf</a>. thing Thing <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a> is the "universal collection": the collection which, by definition, contains everything there is. Every thing in the Cyc ontology -- every <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjaApwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Individual</a> (of any kind), every <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvl2en5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Set_Mathematical</a>, and every <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAzJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Collection</a> -- is an instance of (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBBJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">isa</a>) <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a>. Similarly, every collection is a subcollection of (see <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViBDpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">genls</a>) <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a>. Trivially, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a> is both an instance of and a subcollection of itself, and is not a subcollection of any other collection. (Note that the above reference to "every thing in the Cyc ontology" is not meant to be limited to things actually reified in the Cyc system, but includes (e.g.) every instance -- reified or not, known or not -- of every collection recognized by Cyc.) A <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rAmoSCGJbQdiSXZJvYiNhkQ" class="cyc_term">CycVocabularyTopic</a> and a <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rtGXkHpNaEdqAAAACs0uFOQ" class="cyc_term">KBDependentCollection</a>. basics-fundamental-topic Basics-Fundamental-Topic A <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rAmoSCGJbQdiSXZJvYiNhkQ" class="cyc_term">CycVocabularyTopic</a> and a <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rtGXkHpNaEdqAAAACs0uFOQ" class="cyc_term">KBDependentCollection</a>. basics-fundamental-topic Basics-Fundamental-Topic A specialization of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rwIE23ZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">TimeDependentCollection</a> (q.v.). This is the collection of all and only those collections <code>COL</code> such that any thing's being an instance of <code>COL</code> depends on the current state of the <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvVjqoZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CycKB</a>. Such a <code>COL</code> corresponds to a property defined (at least partly) in terms of the contents, features, or implementation of the Cyc Knowledge Base itself, as opposed to a property that "exists out there" in the KB-independent world. For example, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvV281JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CycLAssertion</a> is a KB-dependent collection, membership in which requires of a given CycL sentence that it has in fact been asserted to the KB. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViAoJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CycLSentence</a> is also KB-dependent, as being a CycL sentence requires being composed (ultimately) out of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvu6KTZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">CycLReifiedDenotationalTerm</a>s (and perhaps variables) -- i.e. terms that are currently reified in the KB. Conversely, <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rv5ddsJwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Sentence</a> is not a KB-dependent collection. See also <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvip9N5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">KBDependentRelation</a>. KB dependent collection KBDependentCollection A <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rAmoSCGJbQdiSXZJvYiNhkQ" class="cyc_term">CycVocabularyTopic</a> and a <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rtGXkHpNaEdqAAAACs0uFOQ" class="cyc_term">KBDependentCollection</a>. Fundamental-Topic fundamental-topic A <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rAmoSCGJbQdiSXZJvYiNhkQ" class="cyc_term">CycVocabularyTopic</a> and a <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rtGXkHpNaEdqAAAACs0uFOQ" class="cyc_term">KBDependentCollection</a>. basics-fundamental-topic Basics-Fundamental-Topic CycVocabularyTopic An instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvprlOZwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">FacetingCollectionType</a> and a specialization of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rgQsP1F2xEdif1wACs2IMlQ" class="cyc_term">Topic</a>. Each instance of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rAmoSCGJbQdiSXZJvYiNhkQ" class="cyc_term">CycVocabularyTopic</a> is a collection of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a>s falling under a topic for which some Cyc Vocabulary exists. <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rgQsP1F2xEdif1wACs2IMlQ" class="cyc_term">Topic</a> is neither a strict [<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvcZ1FpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">facets_Strict</a>] nor a covering [<a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rv86JWpwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">facets_Covering</a>] faceting of <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a>: many <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rvViA9JwpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA" class="cyc_term">Thing</a>s may be instances of no <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rgQsP1F2xEdif1wACs2IMlQ" class="cyc_term">Topic</a>, or of multiple <a href="http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/Mx4rgQsP1F2xEdif1wACs2IMlQ" class="cyc_term">Topic</a>s. cyc vocabulary topic