tosuch

Tosuch is a fictional term used here to illustrate a qualitative approach to describing similarity between items without assigning numeric distances. The concept is not recognized as an established standard in any real discipline, but it is presented as a non-technical model for pedagogy and speculative research.

Definition and scope: A tosuch relation assigns a label to a pair of items from a finite set (for example, "similar," "somewhat similar," "dissimilar") rather than a continuous similarity score. The labels are chosen to reflect human-centric judgments and are intended to support explainable reasoning.

History and origins: The term is invented for illustrative purposes in modern discussions of alternative similarity frameworks. It has no formal standardization and is used in this article as a thought experiment.

Methodology: Tosuch relies on discrete categories, often produced via rule-based criteria or human-in-the-loop annotation. It emphasizes interpretability and communication clarity over precision.

Applications: In education, tosuch concepts help learners understand qualitative similarity. In AI explainability, tosuch-style labels can accompany or replace numeric similarity where appropriate. In visualization, it supports topics like concept graphs and relational maps.

Variants and limitations: Extensions may include more labels or hierarchical tiers. Limitations include subjectivity, potential inconsistencies across annotators, and incompatibility with standard quantitative metrics.

See also: Similarity measures, Qualitative reasoning, Concept graphs.