Ground Fact

A Ground Fact is a Predicate Function with instantiated Predicate Arguments that is assumed to be True.

• AKA: Concrete Fact, Fact.
• Context:
  • It is an instance of a Relation.
  • It can be a Belief held by an Agent (an may be a False Belief).
  • It can be a Tuple (Data Record).
• Example(s):
  • PositiveNumber(1). (A Unary Relation Ground Fact).
  • Person("Socrates"). (A Unary Relation Ground Fact).
  • GreaterThan(1,2) (A Binary Relation Ground Fact)
  • OPL("E.Coli", "ExbB", "cytoplasmic membrane") (An N-ary Relation Ground Fact).
• Counter-Example(s):
  • PositiveNumber(X). (A Unary Relation Predicate Formula).
  • GreaterThan(1,X) (A Binary Relation Predicate Formula).
  • OPL("E.Coli", P, L) (An N-ary Relation Predicate Formula).
• See: Belief, Closed World Assumption, Logic Formula, Extensional Predicate.

References

• http://www.ninebynine.org/RDFNotes/RDFFactsAndRules.html
  • By "ground fact", we mean an assertion that uses specified values or literals, without variables.
• http://mb.eschew.org/11 (RDF)
  • A ground fact (sometimes called a concrete fact) is a fact that is fully known. All the facts discussed so far in this chapter are ground facts. As an example, consider this statement: "Tom is the owner of Spot." It is easy to identify a subject (Tom), object (Spot), and predicate (owner). Everything is known about the statement, and so the statement is said to be ground. This means it has a solid basis. An equivalent ground fact can be written down right away: <- Tom, owner, Spot -> By comparison, a trickier statement might be: "Tom owns a dog." The subject, object, and predicate can still be identified so the statement is ground. An equivalent fact is <- Tom, owner, dog -> If, in this case, you happen to know that there are many dogs, then the question "Which dog does Tom own?" is left unanswered. In that case, "Tom owns a dog" is not ground because no object (a particular dog) can be identified.