Memory is a process, and a memory system is that process. It is not a durable state, and it is not a taxonomy. The process runs over durable state, and durable state is part of the implementation. The memory is the running loop.

The board in the Game of Life is what the rule leaves behind. So is the store. A product that treats the stored state as the memory is optimizing for having it. That product is a file cabinet.

Forgetting is the process working, not a cleanup afterward. An operation exists only while it keeps getting acted on. Credit is counterfactual: was the outcome different without this memory? The question only makes sense across time. A snapshot cannot answer it.

A process cannot be inspected by reading its store. What can be read is what changed.

Delete the operations file. Replay the log of serves, proposals, reconciles, and dreams, with their evidence. The same memory should come back. The log is durable. The store is a cache.

Must any state be durable in its own right?

A philosophical exploration in memory systems, part 19. Terms · Previous: A Rule, Not a Structure