Purpose¶
What this is¶
A point of view for analyzing specific work. Given a role, process, task or system, the lens should answer:
- What is it doing? Which flow it touches, which constraint it builds or maintains, which information it applies.
- What can change, and why? Which levers exist, and what physical reason makes each one effective or not.
- What does a change do? Effects on the work result, team, organization, customers and economy, including sign, delay and who notices first.
What this is not¶
- Not a theory of meaning or purpose. Meaning is real for people, but the model describes physics "regardless of purpose and meaning".
- Not normative. It does not say what work should exist. It says what work does, what sustains it, and what a change will propagate.
- Not a theory of money. Money is treated as a metrics system, not a resource (see Work Functions).
- Not quantitative yet. Propositions are qualitative until key quantities have operational definitions.
Status and path to public¶
| Stage | Exit criterion |
|---|---|
| Internal v0.x (now) | Protocol runs end to end on real cases |
| Internal v1 | Several cases where lens output differed from the default view and proved right |
| Translation | Audience-specific versions (see Translations) |
| Public | Usefulness validated; claims tagged; lineage complete |
Design commitments¶
- The invariant layer is physics plus selection logic. Physics sets what can happen; selection logic (variation, heredity, differential persistence) sets what accumulates. Everything above can change. Decided 2026-10-01 (Q12).
- Collapse test. A concept stays only if it changes how things collapse back to energy, exergy and dissipation. Detail that doesn't is cut.
- Reference system first. Waste, value and selection are always relative to a named reference system.
- Tag every claim as Established, Framing or Hypothesis.