{ "model": { "rank": 1078, "code": "thing-q9420", "model_id": "vr.tr.thought", "name": "thought", "purpose": "Let an agent keep thought as an activity separate from its content and from its expression, and avoid claiming access to anyone else thoughts.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Activities and processes", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "ACT", "domain": "ACT.PRC", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q9420/", "tier": 2, "score": 186, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "response to the COVID-19 pandemic", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2020", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020", "responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020", "formal proof", "raison d'être", "John Henryism", "equation solving", "balancing of a chemical equation", "suicidal ideation", "root-finding algorithm", "symbolic equation solving", "copyright determination method", "presuicidal syndrome", "de-escalation", "incelosphere ascension", "politician's syllogism", "De-escalation policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran", "internal monologue", "coping", "global collective problem-solving", "repurposing", "reverse engineering", "maladaptive coping", "coping strategy", "coming to terms with the past", "revisionism", "tracing", "shotgun debugging", "problem solving", "PCB reverse engineering", "AI-assisted reverse engineering", "protocol reverse engineering", "malware analysis", "religious revisionism" ], "aliasCount": 108, "merged": 108, "knownIn": 186, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": "vr.tr.thought", "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q9420", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9420", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-11T04:26:34Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 1, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q9420", "registryId": "vr.tr.thought", "name": "thought", "version": "0.2.0-wave.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.PRC" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q9420/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.thought", "name": "thought", "purpose": "Let an agent keep thought as an activity separate from its content and from its expression, and avoid claiming access to anyone else thoughts.", "definition": "The mental activity of forming ideas, reasoning, judging and imagining, and the ideas that result from it.", "what_it_is_for": "Understanding, planning, deciding and imagining; the inner activity behind speech and action.", "affordances": [ "express it, in speech, writing or action", "study it, in psychology, philosophy and neuroscience", "train it, through education and practice", "infer it, imperfectly, from what people say and do" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "An activity and its content, which should be modelled separately", "Private: only its expression is available to others", "Includes reasoning, imagining, remembering and judging", "Distinct from perception and from emotion, though entwined with both" ], "appearance": "Not directly observable. It is known through a person own experience and inferred in others from behaviour and expression.", "visual_identification": [ "No visual marker; expressions and behaviour are indirect evidence", "Brain imaging shows activity correlated with thinking, not its content", "Statements of opinion are expressions of thought, not the thought itself" ], "physical_properties": [], "families_and_kinds": [ "reasoning: deductive, inductive, abductive", "imagination and creative thought", "judgement and decision", "reflective and automatic thought" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "mental process", "why": "alongside perception, memory and emotion" }, { "relation": "is expressed as", "target": "statement or text", "why": "the expression is what can be recorded" }, { "relation": "is studied by", "target": "psychology, philosophy and neuroscience", "why": "disciplines with different methods" }, { "relation": "is confused with", "target": "belief", "why": "a belief is a held attitude; a thought can be entertained without belief" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Freedom of thought protections in human rights law", "Mental privacy and neurodata protections emerging in some jurisdictions" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Attributing thoughts to people from thin evidence", "Treating an expression as proof of a belief", "Collecting or inferring mental states without consent" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "kinds-of-thought", "name": "Kinds of thought", "description": "What sort of thinking it is.", "rationale": "Different kinds of thought have different standards of quality.", "layers": [ { "id": "kind", "name": "Kind", "description": "Reasoning, imagining, judging.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-finding", "name": "Kind of thought", "description": "The kind of thinking in question.", "questions": [ { "text": "What kind of thought is involved here?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "What standard of quality applies to it?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "process", "name": "Process", "description": "Deliberate or automatic.", "findings": [ { "id": "process-finding", "name": "Mode of thinking", "description": "Whether deliberate or automatic.", "questions": [ { "text": "Is this deliberate reasoning or automatic thought?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "What biases are typical of that mode?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "content-and-expression", "name": "Content and expression", "description": "What is thought and how it is shared.", "rationale": "Only the expression is observable, so records hold expressions, not thoughts.", "layers": [ { "id": "content", "name": "Content", "description": "The idea or proposition.", "findings": [ { "id": "content-finding", "name": "Content of thought", "description": "The content as far as it is known.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is the content of the thought, as expressed?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "How faithful is the expression to the thought?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "expression", "name": "Expression", "description": "Speech, writing or action.", "findings": [ { "id": "expression-finding", "name": "Expression record", "description": "Where and how it was expressed.", "questions": [ { "text": "Where and how was the thought expressed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Was the expression sincere, reported or paraphrased?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "study", "name": "Study", "description": "How thought is investigated.", "rationale": "Evidence about thought comes from methods with known limits.", "layers": [ { "id": "methods", "name": "Methods", "description": "Experiment, introspection, imaging.", "findings": [ { "id": "methods-finding", "name": "Research method", "description": "The method and its limits.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which method produced this finding about thought?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "What can that method not show?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "findings", "name": "Findings", "description": "What is established.", "findings": [ { "id": "findings-finding", "name": "Established findings", "description": "Results and their replication.", "questions": [ { "text": "How well replicated is this finding?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "text": "Which findings are contested?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "attribution-and-privacy", "name": "Attribution and privacy", "description": "Saying what others think.", "rationale": "Attributing thoughts to people is an inference with ethical limits.", "layers": [ { "id": "attribution", "name": "Attribution", "description": "Claims about what someone thinks.", "findings": [ { "id": "attribution-finding", "name": "Attribution evidence", "description": "The evidence behind an attribution.", "questions": [ { "text": "On what evidence is a thought attributed to this person?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "How should uncertainty in that attribution be stated?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "privacy", "name": "Privacy", "description": "Protection of mental life.", "findings": [ { "id": "privacy-finding", "name": "Protections", "description": "Legal and ethical protections.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which protections apply to inferring someone thoughts?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "text": "When must an agent decline to infer?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should the registry separate thought as activity from thought as content?", "How should an agent mark inferences about what someone thinks?", "What protections should apply to inferred mental states?", "The registry entry has merged aliases about pandemic responses; should those be split off?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a thought, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent keep thought as an activity separate from its content and from its expression, and avoid claiming access to anyone else thoughts.", "characteristics": { "substance": "activity", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2020, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2021, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2021, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2021, Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020, formal proof, raison d'être, John Henryism.", "108 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 186 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a thought, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "something that happens over time", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "response to the COVID-19 pandemic", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2020", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020", "responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2021", "Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020", "formal proof", "raison d'être", "John Henryism" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 186 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 108 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one thought from another, and a thought from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a thought sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a thought from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a thought passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a thought between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a thought, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a thought is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "process-and-outcome", "name": "Process, inputs and outcome", "description": "How a thought proceeds, what it needs and what it leaves behind.", "rationale": "An activity is known by its steps and its results, and both have to be recordable while it is still running.", "layers": [ { "id": "steps-and-sequence", "name": "Steps and sequence", "description": "The steps of a thought, their order and what may run in parallel.", "findings": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions", "name": "Steps, preconditions and completion", "description": "What has to be true before each step of a thought and what marks it done.", "questions": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a step of a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a step of a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a step of a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-results", "name": "Inputs, resources and results", "description": "What a thought consumes and what it produces.", "findings": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs", "name": "Inputs, outputs and side effects", "description": "The resources a thought takes and the results it leaves, wanted or not.", "questions": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the inputs and results of a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the inputs and results of a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the inputs and results of a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What thought is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of thought are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is thought operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of thought and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of thought?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as thought?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a thought came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a thought and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a thought is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a thought, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a thought, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a thought is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }