Provided with a proxy. A topic map author reifies (literally, thing-ifies) a subject by creating a proxy for that subject. The reason for reifying a subject is to make it, in effect, addressable. Computers cannot address subjects (such as the subject which is the notion of love), but they can address certain kinds of proxies for subjects (such as a element whose subject is love, or a node in a topic map graph whose subject is love). Things that can be addressed can be processed, collated, merged, rendered, etc.

Eliminate from definition the rhetoric for how computers can
address a subject.