1
From: "Human Potential & Development."
Split Justification: Development fundamentally involves both our inner landscape (**Internal World**) and our interaction with everything outside us (**External World**). (Ref: Subject-Object Distinction)..
2
From: "External World (Interaction)"
Split Justification: All external interactions fundamentally involve either other human beings (social, cultural, relational, political) or the non-human aspects of existence (physical environment, objects, technology, natural world). This dichotomy is mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive.
3
From: "Interaction with the Non-Human World"
Split Justification: All human interaction with the non-human world fundamentally involves either the cognitive process of seeking knowledge, meaning, or appreciation from it (e.g., science, observation, art), or the active, practical process of physically altering, shaping, or making use of it for various purposes (e.g., technology, engineering, resource management). These two modes represent distinct primary intentions and outcomes, yet together comprehensively cover the full scope of how humans engage with the non-human realm.
4
From: "Modifying and Utilizing the Non-Human World"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates human activities within the "Modifying and Utilizing the Non-Human World" into two exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories. The first focuses on directly altering, extracting from, cultivating, and managing the planet's inherent geological, biological, and energetic systems (e.g., agriculture, mining, direct energy harnessing, water management). The second focuses on the design, construction, manufacturing, and operation of complex artificial systems, technologies, and built environments that human intelligence creates from these processed natural elements (e.g., civil engineering, manufacturing, software development, robotics, power grids). Together, these two categories cover the full spectrum of how humans actively reshape and leverage the non-human realm.
5
From: "Creating and Advancing Human-Engineered Superstructures"
Split Justification: ** This dichotomy fundamentally separates human-engineered superstructures based on their primary mode of existence and interaction. The first category encompasses all tangible, material structures, machines, and physical networks built by humans. The second covers all intangible, computational, and data-based architectures, algorithms, and virtual environments that operate within the digital realm. Together, these two categories comprehensively cover the full spectrum of artificial systems and environments humans create, and they are mutually exclusive in their primary manifestation.
6
From: "Engineered Digital and Informational Systems"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates Engineered Digital and Informational Systems based on their primary role regarding digital information. The first category encompasses all systems dedicated to the static representation, organization, storage, persistence, and accessibility of digital information (e.g., databases, file systems, data schemas, content management systems, knowledge graphs). The second category comprises all systems focused on the dynamic processing, transformation, analysis, and control of this information, defining how data is manipulated, communicated, and used to achieve specific outcomes or behaviors (e.g., software algorithms, artificial intelligence models, operating system kernels, network protocols, control logic). Together, these two categories comprehensively cover the full scope of digital systems, as every such system inherently involves both structured information and the processes that act upon it, and they are mutually exclusive in their primary nature (information as the "what" versus computation as the "how").
7
From: "Information Structures and Data Repositories"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates "Information Structures and Data Repositories" into two categories: the abstract definitions and organizational principles (the "blueprint") and the concrete data instances and content (the "filled-in details"). The first category encompasses the formal descriptions, rules, and relationships that govern how information is structured, represented, and interrelated (e.g., database schemas, data types, metadata standards, ontological models). The second category comprises the actual, specific values, records, files, or media content that conform to these structures and are stored for persistence and accessibility (e.g., rows in a database table, bytes in a file, documents in a content repository). Together, these two aspects comprehensively cover the entire scope of any digital information system, as every system requires both a defined structure and the actual data populating it. They are mutually exclusive because a structural definition is distinct from the specific data instances it describes.
8
From: "Information Schemas and Data Models"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates information schemas and data models based on their primary focus and level of abstraction. The first category encompasses abstract representations focused on the inherent meaning, relationships, and conceptual organization of information within a domain, largely independent of specific technical implementation (e.g., ontologies, logical data models, semantic networks). The second category comprises concrete, system-specific blueprints and rules that dictate how data is actually structured, formatted, validated, stored, or transmitted for practical, operational use by software and hardware systems (e.g., database schemas, API contracts, file format specifications, programming language type systems). These two categories are mutually exclusive, as a model is either primarily concerned with abstract meaning or with concrete system implementation, and together they comprehensively cover the entire spectrum of how information structures are formally defined.
9
From: "Conceptual and Semantic Data Models"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates "Conceptual and Semantic Data Models" based on their primary purpose and the nature of the knowledge they capture. The first category encompasses models whose main objective is to describe, classify, and organize the inherent structure, entities, attributes, and factual relationships of a domain as it exists or is understood, establishing a common vocabulary and shared conceptual landscape (e.g., domain ontologies focused on classification, taxonomies, thesauri, conceptual logical data models describing an 'as-is' reality). The second category focuses on defining normative aspects, rules, constraints, obligations, permissions, and axiomatic relationships that prescribe how elements in a domain *should* behave, interact, or conform to specific conceptual principles and policies, enabling conceptual validation and reasoning (e.g., conceptual models of business rules, policy ontologies, security conceptual frameworks, semantic models primarily designed for inferential reasoning or compliance checking). These two categories represent distinct primary intentions in conceptual modeling and are mutually exclusive in their core emphasis, yet together comprehensively cover the full spectrum of abstract meaning and conceptual organization.
10
From: "Descriptive Conceptual Models and Taxonomies"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates "Descriptive Conceptual Models and Taxonomies" based on whether their primary focus is to define the intrinsic characteristics, attributes, and precise meanings of individual concepts or entities (the 'what' of each conceptual element), or to establish the systematic organization, classification, and explicit inter-relationships (such as hierarchies or networks) between these conceptual elements (the 'how they are structured' or 'where they fit'). Together, these two aspects comprehensively cover the full scope of describing and organizing a conceptual domain, as any such domain requires both clearly defined elements and a structured understanding of their connections, and they are mutually exclusive in their primary emphasis.
11
From: "Descriptive Definitions of Concepts and Properties"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates the scope of descriptive definitions into two exhaustive and mutually exclusive categories. The first focuses on defining the inherent nature, identity, and boundaries of distinct categories of 'things' or 'beings' within a conceptual domain (e.g., what constitutes a 'Person', a 'Car', or an 'Event'). The second focuses on defining the intrinsic characteristics, measurable aspects, or qualitative features that can be ascribed to these concepts or entities (e.g., what 'Height' means, or the possible values of 'Color'). Together, these two types of definitions comprehensively cover all aspects of describing concepts and their properties, as any conceptual understanding involves both identifying the core entities and understanding their distinguishing characteristics, and they are mutually exclusive in their primary descriptive target.
12
From: "Definitions of Entity Types and Classes"
Split Justification: This dichotomy fundamentally separates "Definitions of Entity Types and Classes" based on the primary mode of existence of the entities they define. The first category encompasses definitions for entity types that are fundamentally tangible, physical, and occupy space-time with a material manifestation (e.g., 'Person', 'Car', 'Building', 'River'). The second category comprises definitions for entity types that are fundamentally intangible, conceptual, or represent ideas, events, relationships, states, or theoretical constructs without a primary material manifestation (e.g., 'Event', 'Project', 'Idea', 'Policy', 'Software Program', 'Organization'). These two categories are mutually exclusive, as an entity type's definition is either primarily concerned with a concrete physical existence or an abstract conceptual existence, and together they comprehensively cover the full spectrum of entity types that can be conceptually defined.
✓
Topic: "Definitions of Abstract Entity Types" (W6174)