GMEOW Cognition Module

• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/cognition
• Tier: core
• Group: core

What This Slice Covers

This slice owns 24 terms and contributes 1 mapping or projection rows. Use it when its terms match the native fact you want to preserve; use the linkage tables to see how those facts leave GMEOW for consumer vocabularies.

Dependencies

• gmeow:slices/kernel
• gmeow:slices/temporal

Consumers

• The transpiler's expertise up-projection: schema:knowsAbout lifts to the asserted gmeow:knowsAbout level of the knowledge spectrum, preserving the QID-anchored subject (the agent-memory flagship records what an agent knows across sessions — Principle 14). The reified tier — gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency (a gufo:Relator mirroring SkillProficiency) over the gmeow:KnowledgeLevel ordinal axis, grounded in the gmeow:CognitiveState mode under the kernel gmeow:MentalMoment umbrella — lets the flagship record graded, scaled, time-scoped, standpoint-indexed knowing; attention, interest, and objectual memory-of round it out. Belief/justification epistemics land in the sibling epistemics slice.

Local Map

Examples

Attention Interest Memory

• Source: slices/core/cognition/examples/attention-interest-memory.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:MemoryItem, gmeow:Person, gmeow:attendsTo, gmeow:curiousAbout, gmeow:displayable, gmeow:interestedIn, gmeow:isAwareOf, gmeow:memoryKind, gmeow:memoryKindEpisodic, gmeow:memoryOf
• External prefixes: wd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example (the further objectual cognitive relations. An agent
# records not only WHAT it knows but what it ATTENDS to, is CURIOUS about, and
# REMEMBERS about a subject — the salience/recall surface for the agent-memory
# flagship (Principle 15). These are attentional/affective pulls, NOT goals: the
# boundary to teleology:Desire is documented, never bridged (Principle 9).
# Forgetting is suppression (gmeow:displayable false), never deletion (Principle 10).
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/cognition/> .
@prefix wd:    <http://www.wikidata.org/entity/> .

ex:nova a gmeow:Person ;
    gmeow:name        "Nova"@en ;
    gmeow:attendsTo    wd:Q11660 ;    # artificial intelligence — currently in focus
    gmeow:interestedIn wd:Q395 ;      # mathematics — sustained interest
    gmeow:curiousAbout wd:Q217413 ;   # category theory (curiousAbout ⊑ interestedIn)
    gmeow:remembers    wd:Q192995 .   # quantum computing — a subject she remembers (remembers ⊑ isAwareOf)

# curiousAbout entails interestedIn (subproperty); remembers entails isAwareOf —
# a reasoner derives ex:nova gmeow:isAwareOf wd:Q192995 from the remembers edge.

# --- Suppression, not deletion (Principle 10): forgetting, via the documented
#     remembers ↔ gmeow:MemoryItem bridge . Nova's remembering of a subject is
#     BACKED by MemoryItem(s) about it; a faded memory is the MemoryItem marked
#     gmeow:displayable false — retained for "what she remembered WHEN", never erased.
#     The bridge is prose, so cognition adds no dependency on the ai slice (Principle 9).
ex:novaWorkshopMemory a gmeow:MemoryItem ;   # propositional backing of a now-faded remembering of wd:Q189436 (bioinformatics)
    gmeow:memoryOf     ex:nova ;
    gmeow:memoryKind   gmeow:memoryKindEpisodic ;
    gmeow:displayable  false .               # forgotten — withheld, not deleted

Dunning Kruger

• Source: slices/core/cognition/examples/dunning-kruger.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:KnowledgeLevel, gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency, gmeow:Person, gmeow:accordingTo, gmeow:deeperThan, gmeow:knowledgeKnowsAbout, gmeow:knowledgeMastered, gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyAgent, gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyLevel, gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyScale
• External prefixes: wd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: the Dunning–Kruger case, modelled as COEXISTING standpoint-indexed
# claims (Principle 9), never a global verdict. Sam self-assesses MASTERY of
# quantum computing; an external assessor rates the same knowledge merely as KNOWS-ABOUT.
# Two gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency relators over the same (agent, subject), at
# divergent gmeow:KnowledgeLevel values, each indexed by gmeow:accordingTo to a
# different vantage. GMEOW records the disagreement; it does not adjudicate it.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/cognition/> .
@prefix wd:    <http://www.wikidata.org/entity/> .

ex:sam      a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "Sam"@en .
ex:assessor a gmeow:Person ; gmeow:name "External Assessor"@en .

# --- Self-attributed: Sam, by Sam's own lights, has MASTERED quantum computing.
ex:samQuantumSelf a gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyAgent   ex:sam ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencySubject wd:Q192995 ;         # quantum computing
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyLevel   gmeow:knowledgeMastered ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyScale   gmeow:scaleKnowledgeDepth ;
    gmeow:accordingTo                 ex:sam .             # self-attributed vantage

# --- Observer-attributed: the assessor, on the same scale, rates the SAME knowing
#     of the SAME subject only as KNOWS-ABOUT. Lower depth, coexisting claim.
ex:samQuantumAssessed a gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyAgent   ex:sam ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencySubject wd:Q192995 ;         # quantum computing
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyLevel   gmeow:knowledgeKnowsAbout ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyScale   gmeow:scaleKnowledgeDepth ;
    gmeow:accordingTo                 ex:assessor .        # observer-attributed vantage

# Both relators stand. gmeow:knowledgeMastered gmeow:deeperThan gmeow:knowledgeKnowsAbout
# (transitively, on the LEVELS) quantifies the gap — but the relators themselves are
# never ordered by gmeow:deeperThan, and neither claim is promoted to a fact: the
# divergence is the data (Principle 9).

Knowledge Proficiency

• Source: slices/core/cognition/examples/knowledge-proficiency.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:CognitiveState, gmeow:Instant, gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency, gmeow:Person, gmeow:TimeInterval, gmeow:displayable, gmeow:hasEndInstant, gmeow:hasMastered, gmeow:hasStartInstant, gmeow:hasTemporalFrame
• External prefixes: wd, xsd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: the reified knowledge tier. The flat spectrum (gmeow:hasMastered
# &c.) says HOW DEEP; the reified gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency adds the SCALE it is
# read against, a temporal interval, and a standpoint — the promotion path when
# level, scale, time, or vantage matters (Principle 4). Suppression, not deletion:
# lapsed knowledge is a CLOSED interval with gmeow:displayable false, never removed
# (Principle 10). The mode (gmeow:CognitiveState) and the relator
# (gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency) are DIFFERENT individuals — never double-typed.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/cognition/> .
@prefix wd:    <http://www.wikidata.org/entity/> .
@prefix xsd:   <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

ex:ada a gmeow:Person ;
    gmeow:name "Ada"@en ;
    gmeow:hasMastered wd:Q28865 .   # Python — the flat 80% surface

# --- Promote to a reified proficiency: depth read on an explicit named SCALE,
#     over a temporal interval. The flat hasMastered above and this relator
#     coexist; gmeow:pairsWith links the two forms.
ex:adaPython a gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyAgent    ex:ada ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencySubject  wd:Q28865 ;       # Python
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyLevel    gmeow:knowledgeMastered ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyScale    gmeow:scaleKnowledgeDepth ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyInterval ex:adaPythonSince ;
    gmeow:displayable true .

# The grounding mode is a SEPARATE individual (a gmeow:CognitiveState), never the
# same node as the relator — founded-on is documentation, not a type (Principle 12).
ex:adaPythonKnowing a gmeow:CognitiveState .

ex:adaPythonSince a gmeow:TimeInterval ;
    gmeow:hasStartInstant ex:y2018 ;
    gmeow:hasTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

# --- Suppression, not deletion (Principle 10): Ada once understood a framework she
#     has since let lapse. The proficiency is RETAINED with a CLOSED interval and
#     gmeow:displayable false — what she knew WHEN stays a query, not an erasure.
ex:adaBioinf a gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyAgent    ex:ada ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencySubject  wd:Q189436 ;      # bioinformatics
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyLevel    gmeow:knowledgeUnderstands ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyScale    gmeow:scaleKnowledgeDepth ;
    gmeow:knowledgeProficiencyInterval ex:adaBioinfPast ;
    gmeow:displayable false .                            # lapsed — withheld, not deleted

ex:adaBioinfPast a gmeow:TimeInterval ;
    gmeow:hasStartInstant ex:y2014 ;
    gmeow:hasEndInstant   ex:y2018 ;
    gmeow:hasTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

ex:y2014 a gmeow:Instant ; gmeow:instantValue "2014-01-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:inTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .
ex:y2018 a gmeow:Instant ; gmeow:instantValue "2018-01-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    gmeow:inTemporalFrame gmeow:temporalFrameUTCGregorian .

Knowledge Spectrum

• Source: slices/core/cognition/examples/knowledge-spectrum.ttl
• GMEOW terms: gmeow:Person, gmeow:hasMastered, gmeow:isAwareOf, gmeow:knowsAbout, gmeow:understands
• External prefixes: wd

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: the knowledge spectrum. An agent's epistemic depth toward a
# subject is one of four ordinal levels chained by rdfs:subPropertyOf, so the
# deepest assertion entails every shallower one. Here one agent has MASTERED
# Python (so a reasoner also derives understands / knowsAbout / isAwareOf of it),
# UNDERSTANDS category theory, KNOWS ABOUT bioinformatics, and IS only AWARE OF
# quantum computing. Subjects are wikidata QID entities — the curated bridge.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/cognition/> .
@prefix wd:    <http://www.wikidata.org/entity/> .

ex:ada a gmeow:Person ;
    gmeow:hasMastered  wd:Q28865 ;   # Python — entails understands ⊑ knowsAbout ⊑ isAwareOf
    gmeow:understands  wd:Q217413 ;  # category theory
    gmeow:knowsAbout   wd:Q189436 ;  # bioinformatics
    gmeow:isAwareOf    wd:Q192995 .  # quantum computing — bare awareness only

# The subjects are first-class entities identified by their wikidata QID; the
# spectrum says nothing about them beyond that ex:ada stands toward each at the
# stated depth. A reasoner materialises, e.g., ex:ada gmeow:knowsAbout wd:Q28865
# from the hasMastered assertion via the subproperty chain.

Terms

Classes

Properties

Individuals

Linkages

• Rows: 1
• Projection profiles: -
• External vocabularies: schema

Guide

cognition

Slice: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/slices/cognition · tier: core

An agent's cognitive relations to a subject — how an agent stands toward the things it knows, attends to, and grasps. The objectual companion to the standpoint slice (which carries propositional attitudes toward claims): cognition relates an agent to an entity, not to a proposition. This minimal core seeds the slice with a single axis — the knowledge spectrum. Belief, justification, and knowledge-that are the sibling epistemics slice's job, not this one.

The knowledge spectrum

Four ordinal levels of an agent's epistemic depth toward a subject, chained by rdfs:subPropertyOf so that each deeper level entails every shallower one:

hasMastered ⊑ understands ⊑ knowsAbout ⊑ isAwareOf

Why a subproperty chain (the reasoning value)

One deep assertion materialises the whole tail. hasMastered(p, wd:Q28865) entails understands, knowsAbout, and isAwareOf of the same subject — so a query "who is even aware of Python?" returns the dabbler and the master alike, and "who understands it?" returns the masters too. The order is what reasoning needs; the level boundaries are deliberately vague and no crisp cutoff is claimed. The chain encodes the ordering, not a partition.

Comprehension is not competency

The spectrum is the knows axis. gmeow:hasSkill (the expertise slice) is the can-do axis. A skill entails knowing about its subject (gmeow:hasSkill ⊑ gmeow:knowsAbout, asserted by expertise), but neither understanding nor mastery of it — the axes stay orthogonal and are never silently bridged (Principle 9).

Standpoint indexing

Whose knowledge it is, and how deep, is a vantage-indexed claim through the statement layer (Principle 9). Knowledge attributed to an agent by an observer and knowledge avowed by the agent coexist; a contested depth is two coexisting claims, never a global verdict.

The mental-moment family

gmeow:CognitiveState — the agent-side knowing mode — sits under the kernel's gmeow:MentalMoment umbrella (gmeow:MentalMoment ⊑ gufo:IntrinsicMode). That umbrella gathers an agent's whole mental life under one queryable parent:

gmeow:MentalMoment              (kernel · gufo:Category ⊑ gufo:IntrinsicMode)
├── gmeow:CognitiveState        (cognition · knowing)
├── doxastic states             (epistemics · believing — planned)
└── gmeow:IntentionalMode       (teleology · desiring/intending)

A consumer (the agent-memory flagship, Principle 15) can ask for every mental moment of an agent at once, rather than walking three unrelated branches.

The reified tier — KnowledgeProficiency

The flat spectrum is the 80% surface; promote to the reified gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency (a gufo:Relator, mirroring expertise's SkillProficiency) when level, scale, temporal scope, or standpoint matters (Principle 4). It binds {agent} × {subject} × {level} × {scale} × {interval} through five roles (knowledgeProficiencyAgent / …Subject / …Level / …Scale / …Interval).

• Mode vs relator, never double-typed. A gmeow:CognitiveState (the knowing mode) and a gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency (the reified relator) for the same knowing relation are different individuals. "Founded on" is documentation, not an axiom (Principle 12).
• The depth axis. gmeow:KnowledgeLevel is an open, ordered value vocabulary (knowledgeAware ≺ knowledgeKnowsAbout ≺ knowledgeUnderstands ≺ knowledgeMastered), the kernel GranularityLevel idiom. gmeow:deeperThan is transitive on levels only — KnowledgeProficiency relators are never ordered by it.
• gmeow:pairsWith wires each flat spectrum property to the relator so gmeow describe can render the flat-first / reify-on-demand pairing.
• Suppression, not deletion (Principle 10). Lapsed knowledge is a closed knowledgeProficiencyInterval and/or gmeow:displayable false — retained, never deleted: what an agent knew when stays a query.

Attention, interest, and objectual memory

Beyond what it knows, an agent records what it attends to, is curious about, and remembers about a subject — the salience/recall surface for the flagship:

Boundaries, documented but never bridged by axiom (Principle 9): attention/interest is an attentional pull, not a teleology goal; objectual gmeow:remembers (a remembered subject) is distinct from the propositional gmeow:MemoryItem (a remembered claim, the ai slice) — the link rides gmeow:memoryOf as prose, so cognition adds no dependency on ai. Forgetting is suppression (gmeow:displayable false), never deletion (Principle 10).

Terms

The four ordinal properties of the knowledge spectrum, chained so each deeper level entails every shallower one ([hasMastered](../reference/properties/gmeow-hasMastered.md) ⊑ understands ⊑ [knowsAbout](../reference/properties/gmeow-knowsAbout.md) ⊑ [isAwareOf](../reference/properties/gmeow-isAwareOf.md)).

gmeow:isAwareOf

The faintest depth: the agent has encountered the subject and knows it exists. The honest floor a flat schema:knowsAbout edge lifts no further than.

gmeow:knowsAbout

Knows facts about the subject; can describe it. The eponymous bridge to schema:knowsAbout (skos:exactMatch), and the level a gmeow:hasSkill entails (asserted by the expertise slice).

gmeow:understands

Comprehends the subject; can reason with and apply it — deeper than knowing facts about it, shallower than mastery.

gmeow:hasMastered

The deepest level: expert command — can extend, teach, and innovate on the subject. Asserting it materialises the whole shallower tail.

Alignment

schema:knowsAbout aligns by skos:exactMatch to gmeow:knowsAbout — the eponymous level is the bridge. A flat schema:knowsAbout edge lifts to the asserted gmeow:knowsAbout level (its honest floor: you cannot infer mastery from a flat edge). Going down, all four levels collapse to the single schema:knowsAbout the wider world offers — a lossy projection of the spectrum.

The alignment ledger — alternate depth frameworks

The native gmeow:scaleKnowledgeDepth is the default scale; Bloom's revised taxonomy (gmeow:scaleBloomRevised), SOLO (gmeow:scaleSOLO), and Dreyfus (gmeow:scaleDreyfus, from languages) are reusable alternate gmeow:ProficiencyScales — no canonical framework is enforced (Principle 6). The band correspondence below is a soft, documented alignment (this ledger), never an OWL axiom; the knows-axis and the can-do-axis are never silently bridged (P9):

A gmeow:KnowledgeProficiency records its level on whichever scale it cites; the correspondence above is for cross-framework reading, not automatic conversion (that is solver-side, Principle 12).

See also

• expertise — the applied-competency axis (hasSkill, SkillProficiency, occupations, credentials); hasSkill ⊑ knowsAbout bridges the two. The gmeow:ProficiencyScale / gmeow:ProficiencyLevel value vocab it once held now lives in kernel (relocated by to break a dependency cycle).
• kernel — gmeow:MentalMoment (the shared mental-state umbrella) and the relocated proficiency value vocab.
• teleology — gmeow:IntentionalMode (desiring/intending), the conative member of the mental-moment family.
• standpoint — propositional attitudes toward claims.
• ai — gmeow:MemoryItem, the propositional remembered-claim construct gmeow:remembers is documented (not axiomatised) to bridge to.
• epistemics (planned) — belief, justification, knowledge-that.