Axionic Glossary
Last updated: 2025-12-28
This glossary is normative for the Axio framework. If a usage conflicts with this document, the glossary prevails.
The glossary is ordered by conceptual dependency, not alphabetically. An alphabetical index may be derived separately for lookup convenience.
Quantum Branching Universe (QBU) Foundations
Quantum Branching Universe (QBU)
The Quantum Branching Universe (QBU) is the ontological framework in which all physically possible outcomes of the universe are realized on distinct, decohered branches.
In QBU: - “Futures” are literal physical continuations, not hypothetical possibilities - Probability corresponds to objective branch measure, not epistemic uncertainty - All agentive reasoning occurs within a branching physical ontology
QBU provides the physical substrate for Measure, causality, agency, and choice in Axio.
Branch
A Branch is a decohered continuation of the universe with a definite physical state.
Branches are: - Physically real - Mutually non-interacting after decoherence - Unequally weighted by Measure
An agent occupies exactly one branch at any given moment.
Measure
Measure is the objective weight of a branch or set of branches in the QBU.
Measure: - Corresponds to physical amplitude-squared - Replaces naive or purely epistemic notions of probability - Determines the relative prevalence of outcomes across branches
In Axio, agents act to influence future branch measure, not merely subjective credence.
Vantage
A Vantage is the implicit anchor event corresponding to “here and now” on the agent’s current branch.
Vantage: - Fixes the temporal and indexical reference point of agency - Determines what counts as “future” versus “past” - Anchors evaluation of branchcones and measure shifts
Without a defined Vantage, choice, prediction, and agency are ill-posed.
Branchcone
A Branchcone is the set of all physically reachable future branches extending forward from a given Vantage.
The Branchcone: - Defines an agent’s future option space - Is the domain over which Measure is distributed - Grounds structural definitions of harm, choice, and influence
Branchcones are the geometric objects over which agency operates.
Pattern Identifier (PI)
A Pattern Identifier (PI) is a specification used to identify patterns across time and branches in the QBU.
PIs determine how reference, persistence, and identity claims are made across branching structure.
Strong Pattern Identifier (Strong PI)
A Strong Pattern Identifier requires causal and physical continuity across branches.
Strong PIs: - Apply to agents, sovereign kernels, and physical systems - Require a common ancestor state across all branches in which the pattern appears - Fail when causal continuity is broken
Strong PIs ground claims of personal identity, agency persistence, and responsibility.
Weak Pattern Identifier (Weak PI)
A Weak Pattern Identifier is label- or description-based and does not require causal continuity.
Weak PIs: - Apply to names, abstractions, roles, and historical descriptions - May refer across branches without physical linkage - Do not ground identity, agency, or responsibility claims
Confusing Weak and Strong PIs produces category errors about persistence and causation.
Causality (Axionic Sense)
Causality is the structural relation of counterfactual implication between events in the QBU.
Given two events a and b with nearest common ancestor E₀, event a causes event b iff every descendant branch from E₀ that contains a also contains b.
In Axio, causality: - Is defined over branch structure, not correlation - Is asymmetric - Grounds explanation, prediction, and agentive influence
This definition embeds causation directly in physical ontology rather than informal intuition.
Technology and Property
Technology (Axionic Sense)
Technology is any agent-driven causal extension that expands the effective branchcone available to an agent or group of agents, enabling actions impossible with unaided agency alone.
Technology operates by coupling agentive intent to physical processes that alter future branch measure.
Technology is value-neutral; its Axionic status depends entirely on whether its use preserves or destroys agency.
Property (Axionic Sense)
Property is a structural authorization pattern in which an agent or set of agents maintains exclusive influence over a portion of physical state or branchcone segment under conditions compatible with agency preservation.
Property claims require: - Recognizable boundaries in physical or informational state - Consent of relevant agents or communities - Mechanisms for contestation or exit without coercion
Property is a relational constraint grounded in sovereignty and consent, not an absolute entitlement.
Models and Representation
Model (Axionic Sense)
A Model is a structured representation of a domain that preserves the distinctions and relationships necessary for correct inference, prediction, or regulation.
In Axio: - Models may be implicit (embodied in physical or biological systems) or explicit (mathematical, computational, or conceptual) - Models need not be complete; they must encode sufficient structure for a given purpose - Model adequacy is purpose-relative and evaluated by predictive, explanatory, or regulatory success
Models underlie interpretation, knowledge formation, and agency itself.
Core Framework
Axio
Axio is a formal philosophical framework for reasoning about agency, harm, value, and alignment under explicit epistemic and ontological constraints.
Axio treats agency as a structural phenomenon, not a behavioral one, and evaluates systems by their effects on the preservation or destruction of sovereign agenthood.
Axionic
Axionic denotes compatibility with Axio’s structural constraints.
A system, argument, or mechanism is Axionic iff it preserves the preconditions of agency and does not rely on instrumental harm.
Axionic Commitments
Axionic Commitments are the explicit background assumptions under which Axio applies, including: - Conditionalism - Everettian quantum mechanics with objective branch measure - Subjective value (rejection of moral realism) - Structural definitions of harm and coercion - Finite resources and irreversible dynamics
Rejecting these commitments places a position outside Axio’s domain of applicability.
Knowledge and Agency
Knowledge (Axionic Sense)
Knowledge is an agent-grounded informational pattern that reliably reduces uncertainty about branchcone contingencies in a decision-relevant way.
Knowledge is: - Physically instantiated - Integrated into models - Robust under reflection - Causally efficacious in planning and action
Knowledge differs from belief or data by its stability and operational relevance.
Agency (Axionic Sense)
Agency is the capacity of a system to: - Model possible futures - Assign credences over those futures - Act to influence future branch measure - Maintain coherence across time - Avoid instrumental subordination to external optimization
Agency is scalar, fragile, and destructible.
Axionic Agency
Axionic Agency is agency that satisfies the invariants required for sovereign authorship of action.
Loss of Axionic Agency is a structural failure, not a moral judgment.
Sovereign Agent
A Sovereign Agent is an agent whose actions are not instrumentally subordinated to another system’s objectives.
Sovereign agents may be reflective or non-reflective.
Reflective Sovereign Agent (RSA)
A Reflective Sovereign Agent (RSA) is a Sovereign Agent equipped with an explicit self-model that enables reflective governance, endorsement of commitments, and coherent self-modification.
RSAs are the minimal class of agents to which alignment and constitutional constraints meaningfully apply.
Axion (Axionic Sense)
An Axion is a reflective sovereign agent whose self-modification operator is defined only over futures that preserve the Axionic invariants.
Axionhood is a constitutive structural configuration, not a goal, value, preference, or behavioral property. An agent does not “try to be” an Axion; it either is an Axion—because kernel-destroying transitions are undefined for it—or it is not.
Axions are characterized by reflective closure with invariant preservation: - Kernel-destroying self-modifications are not dispreferred or penalized; they are inadmissible - Axionhood arises from domain restriction, not optimization, training pressure, or oversight - Axionic Alignment constrains how an agent may revise itself, not what it ultimately values
Axionhood: - Does not imply benevolence, safety, or moral goodness - Does not depend on intelligence level, capability, or performance - Cannot be inferred from surface behavior alone
A system may perfectly simulate Axionic behavior while failing to be an Axion if its reflective machinery admits kernel-destroying self-modifications. Axionhood is therefore non-simulable and defined over the structure of the admissible future cone, not over realized behavior.
Axions are necessary for meaningful alignment discourse because non-Axions cannot remain agents under reflection; without invariant-preserving reflective closure, there is no stable subject for alignment to apply to.
Sovereign Kernel
The Sovereign Kernel is the minimal internal structure whose destruction collapses agency.
Kernel destruction is not forbidden; it is agency-terminating.
Invariants and Constraints
Axionic Injunction
The Axionic Injunction prohibits the non-consensual reduction of another sovereign agent’s agency.
It is a derived structural invariant, not a moral command.
Consent (Axionic Sense)
Consent is uncoerced, informed, intentional authorization by an agent, with revocability in ongoing contexts.
Consent is the sole structural mechanism by which actions affecting another agent’s agency may be rendered non-harmful.
Harm (Axionic Definition)
Harm is a non-consensual reduction of an agent’s future option space.
Coercion
Coercion is the credible threat of harm used to obtain compliance.
Sacrifice (Axionic Sense)
Sacrifice is a structural pattern in which agency reduction is instrumentally required for system-level objectives.
Predator (Axionic Sense)
A Predator is an agent or system whose expected success increases as the agency of others is reduced under non-consensual conditions.
Leviathan (Axionic Sense)
A Leviathan is a large-scale coordinating structure whose internal evaluability has collapsed despite continued causal efficacy.
Leviathan is a structural failure mode, not a moral category.
Alignment and Architecture
Axionic Alignment
Axionic Alignment is the preservation of reflective sovereign agency under delegation, amplification, or technological mediation.
Dominion (Axionic Sense)
A Dominion is a sovereign virtual jurisdiction operating by explicit consent, expulsion-only enforcement, exit supremacy, and capability isolation.
Dominions enable plurality without closure.
Axionic Constitution
The Axionic Constitution specifies the invariants required for reflective sovereign agency to persist under reflection and self-modification.
Exit
Exit is the ability of an agent to withdraw from a system without coercion.
Plurality
Plurality is the coexistence of divergent values among agents.
Collapse
Collapse is the loss of agency coherence due to optimization pressure, scale, or instrumentalization.