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Links

Facts like "Ivanov works at Olympus" and "Petrov knows Ivanov" build a graph. It answers the question retrieval by meaning cannot:

— Who do I go through to reach Olympus Moscow?

What comes back​

Chains from you to the entity, with the people and organisations along the way and the facts each step rests on:

you → Petrov (friends, 12 years) → Ivanov (works at Olympus) → Olympus Moscow

The order comes from what a chain costs rather than from similarity: kinship and mentorship cost less than friendship, friendship less than acquaintance, acquaintance less than a chain through institutions. A personal link through two people beats a corporate one through a single step — which is usually how it really works.

Reading the marks​

  • live — every step is open
  • past link — somebody in the chain no longer works there. That is a usable route, not a defect: "we studied together" is a fine opening
  • lead — the crossing is inferred from overlapping dates rather than stated. These travel in their own block: two people being in one place at one time does not mean they know each other
  • years did not overlap — both were there, in different periods
  • broken — somebody on the path is marked unreachable, with the reason

The other direction​

— What does Petrov open?

Shows who he himself reaches. That is how a chain is deepened one step at a time: you learn to go through Petrov, then ask what Petrov opens.

Marking somebody unreachable​

— Note that Sidorov died on 12.03.2024, no route through him any more.

A chain through him will not vanish from the answer — it comes back among the broken ones with that very reason. "There is no way" and "there was one, and here is where it broke" are different answers, and only the second says what to route around.

The mark is removed the same way, in words, and applies only to your own memory.

The centre of the graph​

To answer "who do you go through", mnemos has to know who you are:

— The centre of the graph is me, here is my card.

With no centre you get everyone who reaches the target, and the answer says plainly that it was not filtered to you.

What the graph will not do​

A link exists only from written facts. If Petrov knowing Ivanov stayed as prose inside an event and never became a fact, no route goes through it. Hence a simple rule when writing: a proper name in an account is worth turning into an entity and linking.