Instantiaties

Instantiaties are a theoretical construct used in ontology, knowledge representation, and simulation to refer to the concrete realizations of abstract templates within a system. They are the actual tokens that result when a blueprint, class, or type is executed or asserted in a given context.

The term distinguishes the concrete object from the abstract type. The type provides properties and constraints; the instantiatie embodies them in space-time and carries its own identity and mutable state. Instantiation is the process; instantiatie is the outcome. In formal modeling, an instantiatie is associated with a specific type and may be characterized by a set of attribute values, a creation time, and a lifecycle. Identity criteria ensure that two instantiaties are the same token only if they share references or unique identifiers.

Example: In a program with a class Vehicle, creating a new object Car_7 at time t is an instantiatie of Vehicle; its property color may be red, its mileage 12000, etc. The instantiatie then participates in system events and state transitions according to the model’s rules.

Applications of the concept appear in simulation, knowledge graphs, database schemas, and software engineering to reason about state, provenance, and persistence. Instantiaties enable traceability and differentiation between generic schemas and their actual realizations, supporting auditability and lifecycle management in complex systems.

Relation to other concepts: instantiatie is connected to the type-token distinction, object identity, and lifecycle management. It should not be confused with general instantiation or with the broader notion of a real-world instance; context determines scope and interpretation.