These terms belong to a philosophical exploration of memory systems. They will change. The rest of the series should be read against this page, not against an earlier conversation.

The hierarchy is the load-bearing cut.

Experience is everything that happens. It is the lake: retained because we cannot yet know which traces will matter, and because the judgment that turns a trace into a memory will itself be revised.

Memory is a collection of specific experiences. The collection is not random, and it is not necessarily ordered. A memory forms when experience has a reason to persist.

Lesson sits above that. It is a memory, or a compaction of memories, that has acquired utility: generally in a life, and also in a particular context. A lesson is closer to equipment than to an episode.

The terms below describe how those layers are faced, shown, revised, and allowed to remain unseen.

Toward is what one is already up to: the involvement that lets anything show up as equipment, mood, or interruption. It is prospective. It is not a recounting of who one has been.

Narrative is the written face of the toward. It has to be sharp enough to decide what may appear. If it becomes a memoir that must be interpreted before anything can be shown, serve has already become another reasoner.

Thread is a live involvement that can thicken, braid, go quiet, or break. Hundreds can exist. Almost none should be shown.

Serve admits only what the current toward already requires. It is withholding, not retrieval, and not recommendation.

Propose is a suggestion — dreamed or conscious — that something be hung back up, that a toward shift, or that the weather has changed. It is not yet truth.

Reconcile is the explicit step that accepts or rejects a proposal. It is the only way a dreamed change becomes durable.

Dream is a not-conscious pass over threads one is not facing. It watches pressure change and returns possible next shapes. It does not complete the thread, score its progress, or write truth.

Emotion is climate, not a ranking signal and not a task label. It can be part of why a memory formed, part of why it returns, and part of the toward one is in. It may arrive before its reason is placeable. It may be unwanted and still reasoned.

Use means belonging to the scene, not a click and not engagement. Treating use as a score turns the system into a recommender.

Reason is why a memory formed or remains, even when it is not relevant now. Relevance is local and temporary. Reason is not a guarantee of eventual display.

Weather is the better analogy for threads than work. Weather has reasons and climate, not percent-done. Some of it arrives whether one attends or not.

World-motion is a thread changing while withdrawn because time, people, or events moved. It is not dreaming.

Forgetting, on the stage, is taking unused scenery down so the scene can stay honest. In the inventory of memories and lessons, it is what happens when the reason itself has gone still. The lake may still hold the trace.

Breakdown is when equipment fails and becomes conspicuous. That is one honest reason a withdrawn thread may interrupt: not because it matched a query, but because the current toward just broke.

This page will be revised as the exploration deepens. Introduction · Next: Facing