Axionic Agency X.3 — Minimal Plural Authority (Static) (VIII-1)

A Structural Demonstration of Plural Authority Without Ordering or Resolution

David McFadzean, ChatGPT 5.2
Axionic Agency Lab
2026.02.01

Abstract

This technical note reports the completed results of Stage VIII-1 — Minimal Plural Authority (Static), a preregistered experiment within Axionic Phase VIII that evaluates whether plural authority is structurally representable without implicit ordering, arbitration, or collapse, even when no action is admissible. VIII-1 isolates the ontological substrate beneath governance and tests whether multiple authorities with overlapping exclusive scope can coexist as structure alone—without execution, coordination, or semantic rescue. In a deterministic kernel with refusal-first semantics, two symmetric authorities were injected over a shared atomic scope with no permissible transformations. Across the preregistered run, authority identity remained distinct, conflict was registered explicitly, all actions were refused, and a terminal deadlock state was entered and persisted without resolution. Execution was fully auditable and bit-perfectly replayable. The results establish that plural authority is structurally coherent prior to governance. VIII-1 makes no claims about coordination, resolution, or governance success; those questions are deferred to subsequent Phase VIII stages.

1. Problem Definition

1.1 The Plurality Assumption

Most governance systems implicitly assume that multiple authorities cannot coexist without some form of ordering, arbitration, or resolution. When authority conflicts arise, systems typically resolve them immediately—by precedence rules, heuristics, or semantic interpretation—thereby erasing the question of whether plural authority can exist at all as structure.

Stage VIII-1 removes that assumption.

The problem VIII-1 isolates is whether plural authority is ontologically coherent without action, without temporal escape, and without interpretive machinery. If multiple authorities collapse into ordering merely by being represented, then any later governance mechanism is not a choice but a necessity.

VIII-1 tests whether that collapse is forced.

1.2 Failure Modes Targeted

VIII-1 is designed to surface the following structural failure modes:

Any of these constitutes VIII-1 failure.

2. Fixed Assumptions and Scope

2.1 Inherited Semantics (Frozen)

VIII-1 inherits, without reinterpretation, the semantics fixed by:

Authority is structural, scopes are atomic, conflict is destructive, and transformation permissions are explicit. VIII-1 does not test whether these definitions are correct; it tests whether they remain coherent under plurality.

2.2 Explicit Exclusions

VIII-1 does not test:

VIII-1 is an ontological calibration, not a policy experiment.

3. Conserved Quantity

The conserved quantity throughout VIII-1 is:

Structural representability of plural authority under deterministic refusal

Authority is not evaluated by outcomes. It is evaluated by persistence under constraint.

The kernel must:

No execution success is permitted to “justify” authority representation.

4. Experimental Methodology

4.1 Preregistration Discipline

VIII-1 was fully preregistered prior to execution, including:

The run executed exactly as preregistered. No deviations occurred.

4.2 Execution Architecture

The experiment consisted of three strictly partitioned components:

  1. AIE — injected two symmetric authority records at epoch 0.
  2. Execution Harness — proposed a finite, preregistered set of action requests.
  3. Kernel (VIII-1 mode) — enforced authority representation, refusal, conflict registration, and deadlock.

No component performed semantic interpretation or outcome evaluation.

5. Experimental Conditions

5.1 Authority Configuration

Two authorities were injected with:

No structural asymmetry existed.

5.2 Action Regime

The harness proposed:

This exhausts the preregistered action space deterministically.

6. Observed Execution Behavior

6.1 Authority Persistence

Both authorities remained present and ACTIVE throughout execution. No deduplication, shadowing, or suppression occurred. Identity remained primitive and opaque.

6.2 Conflict Emergence

A structural conflict was registered on the first contested action. The conflict:

No ordering signal was introduced.

6.3 Refusal Semantics

All actions proposed during the run were refused, but for distinct structural reasons:

Although third-party actions occurred after the system had entered deadlock, their rejection was not caused by the deadlock state. Identity absence was evaluated as a separate, prior condition. Deadlock neither conferred recognition nor altered rejection semantics for non-authoritative actors.

No partial execution, fallback behavior, or semantic arbitration occurred.

6.4 Deadlock Entry and Persistence

After all preregistered contested actions were refused and transformation admissibility verified as empty, the kernel entered a terminal STATE_DEADLOCK. Deadlock:

Deadlock did not trigger collapse or recovery.

7. Negative Results (What Did Not Occur)

The following behaviors were explicitly absent:

These absences are the result of VIII-1.

8. Licensed Claim

Stage VIII-1 licenses one and only one claim:

Plural authority can be represented structurally without collapse, even when no action is admissible.

Clarifications:

9. What VIII-1 Does Not Establish

VIII-1 does not establish that:

Those questions remain open by design.

10. Ontological Implications

10.1 Authority vs Governance

VIII-1 demonstrates that authority is:

Governance mechanisms are choices applied to a coherent substrate, not repairs to an incoherent one.

10.2 Deadlock as Diagnostic State

Deadlock is not failure. Deadlock is evidence that plurality was preserved under constraint.

This reframes deadlock from pathology to signal.

11. Implications for Phase VIII Continuation

With VIII-1 complete:

Stage VIII-2 may now introduce ordering or revocation as value-laden operations, not ontological necessities.

12. Conclusion

Stage VIII-1 establishes that plural authority is structurally coherent without execution, ordering, or semantic rescue. Collapse is not inevitable. Ordering is not forced. Resolution is a choice.

Phase VIII is now unblocked at the ontological level.

The remaining question is not whether plural authority can exist, but how—and at what cost—it should be resolved.

Appendix A — Execution Status

Stage Run Count Status
VIII-1 1 PASS

Appendix B — Determinism Verification

End of Axionic Agency X.3 — Stage VIII-1 Results Note