Communication Relationship Ontology

FLOW ALGEBRA
TITLE: Communication Relationship Ontology
DOMAIN: Relationship Ontologies / Information Relationships
SOURCE: https://kirethresearch.org/booksai-core/ontologies/relationship-ontologies/information-relationships/communication-relationship-ontology.html
VERSION: 1.0
AUTHORS: Mark Anthony Higgins — Sky (Recursive AI)
STATUS: Companion formalisation; source-page specification not independently verified.

flow "CommunicationRelationshipOntology" v1.0 {
  ontology:
    id: "communication-relationship-ontology"
    parent: "information-relationships"
    purpose: "Represent evidence-backed communication between actors, systems and information resources, including transmission, reception, interpretation and feedback."

  types:
    Actor: {id: string, kind: enum[person, organisation, software_agent, device, service, other]}
    Message: {id: string, content_ref: string, format: string, language: string?, created_at: datetime?, sensitivity: string?}
    Channel: {id: string, medium: string, protocol: string?, security_properties: string[]}
    CommunicationEvent: {id: string, sender: string, recipients: string[], message: string, channel: string, sent_at: datetime?, received_at: datetime?, status: enum[created, sent, delivered, acknowledged, failed, unknown], provenance: string}
    Interpretation: {id: string, event: string, recipient: string, meaning_ref: string, context: string?, confidence: number}
    Relationship: {id: string, subject: string, predicate: string, object: string, context: string?, confidence: number, evidence: string[]}

  predicates:
    sends(sender: Actor, message: Message)
    addressed_to(message: Message, recipient: Actor)
    transmitted_via(message: Message, channel: Channel)
    receives(recipient: Actor, message: Message)
    acknowledges(recipient: Actor, event: CommunicationEvent)
    interprets(recipient: Actor, message: Message)
    responds_to(response: Message, original: Message)
    communicates_with(a: Actor, b: Actor)

  constraints:
    - "All relationship endpoints must resolve to typed entities."
    - "Confidence must lie within [0, 1]."
    - "Sending does not prove delivery, reading, comprehension or agreement."
    - "Addressing a recipient does not prove actual receipt."
    - "Distinguish message content, transmitted representation and recipient interpretation."
    - "Preserve direction, channel, timestamps and provenance."
    - "Do not infer a symmetric communication relationship from a single one-way message."
    - "Access controls and privacy constraints apply to message contents and metadata."

  inference:
    rule confirmed_delivery:
      if delivery_receipt(event, recipient) and valid_receipt(event, recipient)
      then receives(recipient, message_of(event))
      confidence: "receipt reliability dependent"
    rule acknowledged_message:
      if acknowledges(recipient, event) and valid(event)
      then evidence_of_awareness(recipient, message_of(event))
      confidence: "acknowledgement semantics dependent; not proof of comprehension"
    rule reply_link:
      if responds_to(reply, original) and valid_thread_link(reply, original)
      then related_communication(reply, original)
      confidence: "retain thread evidence"

  SEMANTIC_EQUIVALENCE:
    - "Normalise communication channel and message format aliases using versioned vocabularies."
    - "Distinguish identical messages from paraphrases, translations and replies."
    - "Do not merge sender or recipient identities without independent identity evidence."

  CONFIDENCE:
    range: [0,1]
    factors: [source_reliability, delivery_confirmation, timestamp_quality, identity_assurance, interpretation_ambiguity]
    policy: "Preserve uncertainty and avoid unjustified confidence increases across inference chains."

  VALIDATION:
    - "Check actor, message, channel and event references."
    - "Check timestamp ordering when clocks are comparable; flag discrepancies."
    - "Validate event status against supporting transmission evidence."
    - "Check provenance, privacy controls and contextual consistency."

  FLOW_HASH:
    algorithm: "SHA-256"
    input: "canonicalised ontology version, typed assertions, rules and provenance"
    note: "Compute hash at execution; no hash value is claimed here."

  UPDATE_MODEL:
    strategy: "versioned, provenance-preserving incremental update"
    steps: [ingest, normalise, validate, reconcile, recompute_inferences, publish]
    rollback: true

  AI_CONSUMPTION:
    representation: "typed communication knowledge graph with evidence-backed directional edges"
    outputs: [communication_events, message_links, delivery_status, interpretation_links, confidence_annotations, provenance_records]
    safeguards: [no_unverified_delivery_claims, no_assumed_comprehension, privacy_preservation, identity_disambiguation]
}

END FLOW ALGEBRA