Representational form

Type: kb/types/definition.md · Status: current · Tags: learning-theory

Representational form classifies how a retained artifact's operative part is encoded and consumed. This KB uses three coarse forms: prose, symbolic, and distributed-parametric. Mixed artifacts should be split by operative part or consumption path when the parts have different review evidence, invalidation needs, or rollback paths.

Scope

Prose carries behavior-shaping content in natural language interpreted by a language model or human. Prompts, reflections, notes, policies, playbooks, and many skills are prose where their force comes from interpretation.

Symbolic carries behavior-shaping content in localized units whose consequences are assigned by a parser, interpreter, runtime, schema, validator, route table, or other defined consumer. The category is architectural, not a claim about classical symbolic AI.

Distributed-parametric carries behavior-shaping content in numerical state distributed across parameters or dense representations: weights, adapters, embedding spaces, dense-vector indexes, reward models, learned controllers, and similar artifacts.

Form sets the default inspection method: read prose, test or statically check symbolic artifacts, and probe distributed-parametric artifacts behaviorally.

Exclusions

Representational form is not storage substrate. Markdown in a repository can be prose, symbolic, or mixed depending on the consumer. A vector store can expose prose records while its retrieval behavior depends on distributed-parametric embeddings and ranking.

Misuse Cases

  • Calling learned weights "opaque" as if opacity were the form. The form is distributed-parametric; opacity is a practical inspection property that also appears at sufficient scale in prose and symbolic systems.
  • Calling every YAML or Markdown artifact symbolic. It is symbolic only where a consumer assigns defined consequences to specific fields, values, or structures.

Relevant Notes:

  • operative part - unit: representational form classifies the relevant behavior-shaping part, not necessarily the whole stored object
  • storage substrate - contrast: location is separate from representation
  • codification - mechanism: movement from prose into symbolic form
  • opacity is a scale threshold - caveat: practical opacity is not identical to representational form