**Actuality** · *Definition.* A proposition is actual when it is true of the configuration that has actually been taken. Every actual fact is possible (actuality implies possibility), but not every possibility is actual. Conflating actuality with necessity — treating what happens to be true as if it could not have failed to be — is the *modal-collapse error*. Established in [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>).

***actus essendi*** · "Act of being" (Latin); the metaphysical actuality of a being's existence.

***actus purus*** · "Pure act" (Latin); Aquinas's name for God as having no potency.

***aeviternus*** · "Of the aeon" (Latin); the medieval intermediate category between time and eternity.

**Aseity** · *Definition.* The property of being uncaused, ungrounded, and self-sufficient. The present argument treats T, S, and Φ as structurally prior to beings embedded in their roles. An embedded deity therefore faces an aseity or ultimacy burden; this is not by itself a contradiction, and an essence-prior proposal requires a separate account of its grounding relation.

**Aseity Forfeiture** · **R15** · *Result of T5.* Structure is ontologically prior to any being embedded in it: Temporality, Spatiality, and Physicality (T, S, Φ) are prior to any being embedded in them — not temporally prior, but structurally prior in the sense that structure is the precondition of the embedded being's existence rather than the reverse. Therefore no embedded being (process, open, panentheist) possesses aseity. The relabeling move ('the necessary structure is God') changes the word while conceding the substance: necessity, all-encompassingness, and explanatory basicness do not entail personhood, agency, or intentionality. Established in [§6.1](<6.1 Greatness.md>), [§6.10](<6.10 No Exit.md>).

**Benevolence, Divine** · *See* Moral Predicates, Divine; [§6.9.1](<6.9.1 Benevolence.md>).

**Bilateral Self-Sustenance of Modal Structure** · **L1** · *Lemma toward Necessary Possibility.* The bilateral self-undermining of modal-structure collapse: (i) if nothing were possible, the supposition that nothing is possible would itself instantiate possibility; (ii) if nothing were impossible, the predicate *possible* would lose the contrast-class on which substantive possibility-predication runs. Both directions self-undermine, so the modal structure is necessary in both directions as a paired bilateral structure — □∃P: ◇P ∧ □∃P: ¬◇P, both poles necessarily occupied. The technical lines that follow re-derive it from independent directions — the axiomatic derivation ([§2.1.4](<2.1.4 Modal Stability.md>)), the w′-reductio ([§2.1.5](<2.1.5 The S5 Bottleneck.md>)), and the Transition Closure ([§2.1.6](<2.1.6 The Transition Closure.md>)); the negative direction rests on the alternation principle fixed at [§2.1.3](<2.1.3 Modal Constitution.md>). Established in [§2.1.3](<2.1.3 Modal Constitution.md>).

**Bilateral Symmetry** · *Principle.* S5 cuts in both directions. If ◇□G → □G is Plantinga's direction, ◇□¬G → □¬G is its bilateral mirror. Applied to the classical God: the defining attributes — atemporality (¬T), aspatial existence (¬S), immateriality (¬Φ) — analytically entail ∅, and by the Exclusivity of Nature (Theorem 7) ∅ is precluded; ◇□¬G is licensed, and by the mirror, ∴ □¬G. Two independent lines converge in overdetermination: the definitional line via ∅-preclusion (no S5 required — ¬◇G ∴ □¬G directly) and the S5-mirror line (Plantinga's own modal tool run symmetrically). Used in Appendix B item 16.

**Cartesian Certainty** · *Concept.* The indubitable certainty that change is possible (◇C): to doubt it is already to change one's epistemic state, so the denial is self-refuting. The Cartesian fixed point of the argument and its premise P2, reformulated as *cogito ergo muto*. Lifted to its necessitated form — the Necessary Possibility of Change (□◇C, L3) — by the Necessary Possibility Theorem. *See* Performative Self-Refutation; Necessary Possibility of Change. Established in [§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>).

**Causation** · *Concept.* Structural dependence, not regularity. The framework follows the role-definition of [§1.4](<1.4 Three Conditions.md>): causation is what Φ supplies — the persistence of a relatum through transition — not a constant conjunction in the manner of Hume.

**Change** · *Definition.* One state, then another. Three structural requirements — Succession, Distinction, and Exchange — follow from the definition as its internal dimensions ([§1.3](<1.3 Change.md>)). C is the schematic letter for change throughout.

**Classical God** · *Definition.* The God of scholastic theology, including the Maximally Great Being of perfect-being theology and the Boethian conception of eternal presentness. Defined by negation of the structural roles: atemporality (¬T), aspatial existence (¬S), immateriality (¬Φ).

***Cogito Ergo Muto*** · *Concept.* "I think, therefore I change." The framework's reformulation of Descartes's *cogito*: the structural condition of thinking is the structural condition of change. The performative form of Cartesian Certainty (◇C): to doubt that change is possible is already to change one's epistemic state, so the denial is self-refuting. *See* Cartesian Certainty; Performative Self-Refutation. Established in [§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>).

**Concept-Essence Identity** · *Named Result.* A concept and its essence are not two things related, but one thing under two descriptions. The classical move that distinguishes them — placing the essence behind the concept as its ground — introduces a structural separation that the analysis at the Modal Identity ([§2.6.6](<2.6.6 Modal Identity.md>)) forecloses.

**Consciousness** · *Identification.* A living system that models itself in the act of living — self-maintenance folded back to include a model of the very process doing the maintaining. Technically, the integrative-flow recursion of dissipative self-maintenance that includes the modeling itself. Established in [§7.8](<7.8 Life.md>).

**Constitution** · *Concept.* The relation between a thing and what it is made up of, read from either side: the clay *constitutes* the statue, and the statue *consists in* the clay. Runs at both the material-token level (statue and clay) and the role-analytic level (*change consists in succession, distinction, and exchange*). Established in [§1.5.2](<1.5.2 Constitution.md>).

**Constitutive Instantiation** · **R8** · *Result of T3.* Where any one of T, S, Φ (or a determinate of one) is *actually present* in an experiencing — instantiated, not merely represented — all three are co-instantiated, and the ground of that experiencing itself instantiates all three. The result holds on either horn of the encoding dilemma: a ground that instantiates the Condition outright does so directly; a ground that merely *encodes* it instantiates the three all the same, since a tokened encoding is borne in a medium (Φ), across distinct elements (S), processed across steps (T). Scoped to grounds of actual, ongoing experience — a frozen, never-read encoding need not succeed in time. Distinct from the *Mutual Containment Result* (which states only that the three stand or fall together): Constitutive Instantiation carries the actuality of structured experience to its ground. Established in [§2.6.7](<2.6.7 Triconditional Cross-Entailment.md>); deployed at [§2.2.2](<2.2.2 Actuality's Reach.md>).

**Contingency** · *Definition.* A proposition is contingent (◇P ∧ ◇¬P) when it really could be the case and really could fail to be. The modal status that tracks arrangement-dependence: truth varies with which configuration obtains. Established in [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>).

**Cycle** · *Concept.* A proposed macro-structural recurrence of cosmic history. The chapter uses past-eternity and the preclusion of ∅ to motivate resistance to a stable zero-extension terminus, but specific cyclic cosmologies remain empirical and abductive proposals. Established in [§7.6](<7.6 Singularity.md>).

***Dasein*** · Heidegger's "being-there," the human mode of existence.

**Distinction** · *Concept.* One of the three structural requirements of Change (alongside Succession and Exchange). Identified with S in the role-definitions.

**Distributed Correction** · **R27** · *Result of Participation Conditions.* Democracy's first function is not periodic preference aggregation but continuing public correction: representation supplies direction, public information makes conditions visible, plural institutions test competing descriptions, and review enables revision when an arrangement's first account fails. Exclusion, censorship, opacity, and capture therefore damage a polity's capacity to learn what it is doing to those it governs. Established in [§9.14](<9.14 Convergence.md>).

**Entailment** · *Concept.* One claim guarantees another: *P entails Q* means there is no way for P to be true while Q is false. Throughout the book *entails* carries the modal-metaphysical reading — no possible world in which P obtains and Q fails — unless the context is explicitly formal-logical. *See also* Necessity. Established in [§1.5.3](<1.5.3 Inference.md>).

**Epistemic Floor** · **R22** · *Result of Modal Freedom.* The participation floor is epistemic infrastructure: the material and social conditions that give a subject enough practical distance from necessity to attend, compare reasons, refuse coercive terms, learn from correction, and form a direction of their own. It therefore protects the practical conditions of informed consent, democratic judgment, and moral agency, not welfare alone. Established in §9.

**Euclidean Axiom** · *Principle.* The S5 axiom that what is possible is necessarily possible: ◇P → □◇P. The present argument derives this as the Necessary Possibility theorem (T1) — from the Modal Constitution premise and the real/Reality identity — rather than importing it as an axiom ([§2.1.3](<2.1.3 Modal Constitution.md>), [§2.1.10](<2.1.10 Necessary Possibility.md>)). *See* Necessary Possibility (Theorem 1).

**Exchange** · *Concept.* One of the three structural requirements of Change. Identified with Φ.

**Exclusivity of Nature** · **T7** · *Theorem 7.* Candidate grounds already specified within the modal domain cannot ground that domain externally: if they instantiate the relevant structural roles, they do not stand outside them. A proposal withdrawing all determinate relation faces an ∅-like specification problem. An essence-prior or transcendent proposal remains a live metaphysical burden rather than an automatically excluded third option. Established in [§2.8.6](<2.8.6 Exclusivity of Nature.md>); scoped at [§4.1.10](<4.1.10 The Source of Possibility.md>).

**Existence** · *Definition.* To stand within Time, Space, and Substance — to stand within succession, distinction, and exchange rather than over against them. Existence is not a bare positing laid over what a thing is; the being-there is the standing itself. Chapter 2 formalizes the same triad as Temporality, Spatiality, and Physicality. Established in [§1.5](<1.5 Existence.md>).

**Field** · *Concept.* The physical realization of S↔Φ — substance does not occur without spatial extent. Established in [§7.5](<7.5 Binding of the Conditions.md>).

**Grounding** · *Concept.* Non-causal dependence: X *grounds* Y when Y holds *because of* X, where the *because* is metaphysical, not causal or temporal. The dependence runs one way only; the canonical case is Fine's singleton, grounded in its member and not the reverse. Adjacent operators (*fixes*, *makes the case*) name determination. Established in [§1.5.5](<1.5.5 Ground and Dependence.md>).

**The Identity of the Totality** · **R19** · *Result of T6.* Reality, Nature, and the universe in its totality sense are one and the same — one structure under three names, not three things that coincide. The modal half is immediate from the Necessity of Nature (Theorem 6): □(R = N). The unconditional half is supplied by *Nature Alone* (Chapter 7): with nothing standing outside Nature to ground or supplement it, the totality of what there is just is Nature. Discharges the totality-sense identity flagged at [§1.4.4](<1.4.4 Triconditional Structure.md>); the contingent-arrangement sense of "universe" is excluded. Established in [§7.9](<7.9 Synthesis.md>).

**Immutability, Divine** · *Concept.* The classical attribute that God cannot undergo change of any kind — in essence, will, knowledge, or relation. *Immutabilis* names what cannot be moved or altered; the doctrine extends the negative predicate past contingent change to *any* change whatever, including the change of standing in a new relation to a contingent creature. The argument shows the doctrine is unintelligible at its load-bearing point: change is what the Modal Identity ([§2.6.6](<2.6.6 Modal Identity.md>)) shows is what it is for a being to be in Nature; a being for which change is foreclosed in every direction is a being whose conditions of existence — succession, distinction, exchange — have been stripped, and what remains is no being at all. Distinguished from the contingent-feature-stability classical theism also valorizes (constancy of character, of purpose, of love), which the framework can preserve as a structural feature of any integrated being-in-Nature but which the classical doctrine collapses into the metaphysical claim that no change of any kind is metaphysically possible for God. Established in [§6.3.3](<6.3.3 Immutability.md>).

**Impassibility, Divine** · *Concept.* The classical attribute that God cannot be acted upon or affected — not by suffering, not by creaturely petition, not by the contingent fact of any creature's existence. *Impassibilis* names what cannot undergo *passio*. The doctrine is the relational extension of immutability: where immutability forecloses change *of* God, impassibility forecloses being-affected *by* anything that would constitute a real relation between God and the contingent. The argument's response runs parallel to immutability: being-affected is the receiving side of exchange (Φ); a being for which the receiving side is foreclosed in every direction is a being for which Φ is stripped, and Φ stripped means ∅ by the Exclusivity of Nature (Theorem 7). The compassion-language of scripture and liturgy presupposes precisely the relational receptivity the doctrine denies. *See also* Immutability; Benevolence, Divine. Established in [§6.3.4](<6.3.4 Impassibility.md>).

**Impossibility** · *Definition.* A proposition is impossible (¬◇P) when it really could not be the case. Structurally so: there is no configuration that includes it. Distinguished from "very improbable" and "situationally unobtainable." Established in [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>).

**Inversion** · *Definition.* The central application of the thesis (Theorem 6, Necessity of Nature) to classical theism: the tradition's negations of T, S, Φ do not describe a higher reality but an evacuated one. The Inversion runs systematically across the classical divine attributes ([§6.2](<6.2 Constitution.md>)–[§6.9](<6.9 Moral Act.md>)).

***Ipsum Esse Subsistens*** · "Subsisting being itself," Aquinas's name for God as pure act of being.

**Life** · *Definition.* A closed self-producing recursion coupled to sustained energy throughput. Closure (the configuration produces its own conditions of continuation) plus throughput (sustained coupling to an energy gradient it dissipates through itself); neither suffices alone — closure without throughput is a clock, throughput without closure a flame. Multiply realizable across substrates, with Darwinian evolution downstream of closure. Established in [§7.8](<7.8 Life.md>).

***maranasati*** · The Theravada Buddhist meditation on death (Pali).

**Maximally Great Being** · *Concept.* The God of perfect-being theology: the being than which none greater can be conceived, possessing every great-making property to the maximum compatible degree. A species of the Classical God, defined by negation of the structural roles (¬T, ¬S, ¬Φ); the Perfection entry's three-horn composition test and the bilateral modal mirror both target it. *See* Classical God; Perfection, Divine; Bilateral Symmetry. Established in [§6.2.4](<6.2.4 Perfection.md>).

***meditatio mortis*** · The meditative practice of contemplating death (Latin).

**Medium** · *Concept.* What carries or sustains something across: a beam *bears* a load, a wire *carries* a current. Adjacent to causation but distinguishable — a medium can bear without producing. Names the general transmission operator, not a role-term for Nature or a synonym for Substance ([§1.4.3](<1.4.3 Substance.md>)). Established in [§1.5.7](<1.5.7 Medium of Transmission.md>).

***memento mori*** · "Remember that you must die" (Latin).

**Methodological Convergence** · *Principle.* Logic, metaphysics, mathematics, and physics can be read as partially converging on structural roles relevant to T, S, and Φ. The convergence is abductive and interpretive: physics and mathematics do not independently demonstrate the modal proof, while the proof does not derive their particular empirical results. Established in [§7.1](<7.1 Convergence of Method.md>).

**Modal Access** · *Concept.* The reaching-into relation by which a being queries a modal structure: perception is modal access running in real time, knowledge is modal access registered to modal memory, language is modal access shared across beings. The reliance-on-modal-memory gradient developed across Chapter 8 tracks how heavily current modal access leans on prior modal memory. The relational term anchoring Chapter 8.

**Modal Field** · *Concept.* A body's fallible interior mapping of the modal structure at the depth its recursion has reached. Where the modal structure is the fixed structure of what is and is not possible — the structure □(T∧S∧Φ) defines, presupposed by any possible description, law, or transition — the modal field is a particular being's interior mapping of that structure. It is not the structure itself but a fallible map of it: the structured space of possibility the being is configured to operate in, which can misrepresent the structure (a field can be wrong; the structure cannot). Constituted by the being's modal access relations to the modal structure; populated by modal memory; organized by its modal representations, each placed by a modal weight. Measured on two axes: modal depth (how much of the structure it maps) and modal fidelity (how truly it maps it). The individual pole of the Chapter 8 apparatus; its collective counterpart — many fields pooled and interlinked — is the modal network. Distinct from the modal structure (shared as the structural ground) and from logical space / possibility space (literature-engagement names for the modal structure).

**Modal Identity** · **T2** · *Theorem 2.* Nature read from the side of possibility: the three Conditions whose joint instantiation is co-extensive with the possibility of change across all worlds — ◇C ↔ (T ∧ S ∧ Φ). Read as an identity, not a mere necessary biconditional — the two sides have no independent ground, so they are one structural fact under two descriptions rather than two facts that necessarily co-vary. The first of three readings composing the Triconditional Identity ([§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>)), alongside the Triconditional Cross-Entailment (Theorem 3) and the Ontological Identity (Theorem 4); in necessitated form, □◇C ↔ □(T ∧ S ∧ Φ). Established in [§2.6.6](<2.6.6 Modal Identity.md>).

**Modal Representation** · *Concept.* The registration of what is necessary, conditionally necessary, structurally co-varying, and freely contingent across some domain. Self-modeling systems instantiate interior modal representations; technology at depth externalizes representations into shared substrate, building the modal network ([§8.11](<8.11 Technology.md>)). Probability is conditional on the modal structure the representation identifies; probability precision is bounded above by modal-representation resolution ([§5.1.5](<5.1.5 Fine-Tuning Argument.md>)).

**Modal Memory** · *Concept.* The registration of modal access that has occurred and remains available for re-access. The substrate of knowledge: to *know* is to have modal memory of an access, retrievable on demand. The folk-language entry point is the phrase *I used to know that* — which marks not the loss of a fact but the failure of current modal access to retrieve from modal memory the path to the fact. Perception is modal-memory-in-real-time: the ongoing write-update of modal memory as access is currently occurring. The reliance-on-modal-memory gradient developed across Chapter 8 (including the hallucinogenics passage at [§8.14](<8.14 Spirituality.md>)) tracks how heavily current modal access leans on prior modal memory versus operates with that reliance loosened. One of the four architectural terms anchoring Chapter 8.

**Modal Pressure** · *Concept.* The informal name for the necessity-propagation of possible Change through structure that is itself necessary: the necessary possibility of change (□◇C) propagates through the modal-structural link because Nature is necessary. Read from inside Nature, N ↔ □◇C names it directly. *See* Triconditional Identity. Established in [§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>); load-bearing applications in [§7.8](<7.8 Life.md>) and [§8.1](<8.1 Drive.md>).

**Modal Status** · *Concept.* A proposition's modal status is whether it is possible, impossible, or necessary — the three values that pick out how it stands relative to what could really be. Two further values fall out alongside the three: contingency (a proposition that could be the case and could fail) and actuality (the value that picks out the configuration that has been taken). Modal status is the organizing concept of [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>), not itself a numbered definition; its values are fixed by the definitions it ranges over. *See* Possibility, Impossibility, Necessity, Contingency, Actuality. Established in [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>).

**Modal Convergence Theorem** · **T9** · *Theorem 9.* The formal claim that the relation by which beings hold each other in modal existence is mutual rather than asymmetric: where beings stand in this relation, every being holds and is held *for* every other being, and the relation does not reduce to a sum of pairwise asymmetric dependencies — distinguishing it sharply from modal dependence (asymmetric), modal support / modal assistance (one-directional), and modal grounding (one-way structural). The architectural relation Chapter 8 takes meaning ([§8.8](<8.8 Meaning.md>)), knowledge ([§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>)), language ([§8.10](<8.10 Language.md>)), morality ([§8.12](<8.12 Morality.md>)), and spirituality ([§8.14](<8.14 Spirituality.md>)) to instantiate at their fullest expressions; it grounds the cross-domain extensions [§7.9](<7.9 Synthesis.md>) and [§8.15](<8.15 Synthesis.md>) develop. Established in [§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>).

**Modal Alignment** · *Concept.* Two or more bodies holding the same modal representation, independent of whether it tracks the modal structure. Alignment is truth-neutral: two witnesses who agree the car was blue are aligned even if it was red, and one who says blue while another says red are unaligned even though one is correct. It comes apart from modal convergence both ways — a population can converge at the frontier while the wider society stays unaligned, and bodies can be aligned on a shared falsehood with no convergence toward truth. Established in [§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>).

**Modal Contamination** · *Concept.* A modal representation that is present but wrong — a stored modal weight that misrepresents the structure. It arrives through two channels: external and adversarial (propaganda, indoctrination, lying, which inject false weights through expression into a field or the modal network) and internal and passive (reconstructive memory drift, with no liar required). The decay-direction of modal fidelity; its antidote is the independence on which convergence runs. Established in [§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>).

**Modal Depth** · *Concept.* The extent axis of a modal field: how much of the modal structure a body has mapped — the breadth and resolution of possibility held as live. Distinct from modal fidelity (how truly the field tracks the structure); a field can be deep but distorted or shallow but accurate. A factor of modal freedom, not the whole of it. Established in [§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>).

**Modal Expression** · *Concept.* The externalized subset of a body's modal field: a representation pressed outward into a medium — language, image, sound — so it can be transmitted to another body. A field always holds far more than it expresses. Expression is the vehicle by which representations reach other fields — the channel of modal alignment and modal convergence, and, when persisted into shared substrate, the means by which the modal network is built — and therefore also the channel of modal contamination. Established in [§8.10](<8.10 Language.md>).

**Modal Fidelity** · *Concept.* The accuracy axis of a modal field: how truly the field's mapping tracks the modal structure, as distinct from modal depth (how much of the structure is mapped). A field can be deep but low-fidelity or shallow but high-fidelity. Modal convergence is the growth-direction of fidelity; modal contamination is its decay-direction. Established in [§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>).

**Modal Network** · *Concept.* The collective converging field: many individual modal fields pooled and interlinked — through modal expression and externalization into shared substrate — into one shared body of modal representations, queried, corrected, and inherited across bodies (its paradigm case is the internet). The collective counterpart to the individual modal field; what modal convergence moves toward the modal structure, and what pre-weights the fields of new bodies. Established in [§8.11](<8.11 Technology.md>).

**Modal Weight** · *Concept.* The modal placement carried by every modal representation: where it sits — possible, impossible, necessary, contingent, or actual — and how heavily, grounded in the structure's own gradations. Weights are often inherited through the modal network rather than computed firsthand, which is part of what makes them contaminable. Modal convergence raises fidelity by bringing a representation's weight into line with the structure; modal contamination corrupts it. Established in [§8.3](<8.3 Knowledge.md>).

**Moral Predicates, Divine** · *Concept.* The classical moral predicates the tradition applies to God — *benevolent*, *just*, *merciful*, *loving*, *patient*, *faithful*, *gracious* — are manner-of-acting predicates: adverbial in grammar, requiring an act for the manner to modify. Acting requires the structural conditions of action — succession from not-acting to acting (T), a target distinct from the actor (S), a substantive agent who acts (Φ). The doctrine that strips T, S, Φ from divine being strips the conditions on which the moral predicates run; the reframings that preserve the predicate-names (analogical predication, indexing possibility to divine nature, identifying the being with the standard against which alternatives are measured) preserve the verbal predicates at the cost of the structure their content depends on. *Benevolence* is the lead case: the Latin compound *bene volens* (*well-willing*), traced honestly, names what Nature is when subjects act on subjects to keep each other in being under symmetry-of-extraction. The doctrine's God is not malevolent, not benevolent, not indifferent in any positive sense — the being is outside the field in which moral predicates have purchase, and what those predicates actually pick out is what Nature is when subjects mutually maintain one another. Established in [§6.9.1](<6.9.1 Benevolence.md>).

**Mortality** · *Identification.* The Null State ([§2.7.1](<2.7.1 Null State (∅).md>)) registered from inside — the negative horizon of continuation, the I confronting its own non-continuation. The modal alternative the configuration cannot transit through and continue. The present account does not soften the registration: a self-modeling configuration deep enough to register itself as the I that knows it will end is the configuration in which finitude becomes phenomenologically load-bearing. *See also* *Sein-zum-Tode*; *memento mori*; *maranasati*; *meditatio mortis*. Established in [§8.7](<8.7 Mortality.md>).

**Mutual Containment** · **R7** · *Result of §[§2.6.2](<2.6.2 Succession's Two Conditions.md>)–2.6.4.* Instantiating any one of T, S, Φ entails instantiating all three. Direct from the Triconditional Cross-Entailment: each role's instantiation entails the conjunction of the other two.

**Mutual Sustenance** · **T10** · *Political-structural identification.* Subjects exposed to shared conditions may have reason to support their maintenance. Durable convergence also depends on recognition of others' standing, accountable institutions, and empirical conditions for cooperation; it is not a deduction from self-interest alone. *Convergent Individualism* names the proposal that individual pursuit can support shared maintenance under those conditions. Paired with Subsistence at the chapter-paradigm level. Established at the §9 chapter root.

**Nature** · *Definition.* Reality’s necessary structural constitution: the joint presence of Temporality, Spatiality, and Physicality, □(T ∧ S ∧ Φ). Not a totality of natural objects, nor an abstract framework Reality happens to possess, but the necessary structural constitution in virtue of which any Reality is possible. The conclusion of the argument is that this constitution is necessary ([§2.8.5](<2.8.5 Necessity of Nature.md>)). *See also* Identity of Reality and Nature.

**Necessary Occupancy** · **R12** · *Result of T5 and T7.* For any individual thing to exist is for it to occupy the necessary structure — to come to be at a point in Time, somewhere in Space, and persist as a causal relatum in Substance. Follows from Exclusivity of Nature (Theorem 7) and the Triconditional Identity (Theorem 5). Established in [§2.8.6](<2.8.6 Exclusivity of Nature.md>).

**Necessary Possibility** · **T1** · *Theorem 1.* Whatever is possible is necessarily possible, and whatever is impossible is necessarily impossible — ◇P → □◇P, with bilateral companion ¬◇P → □¬◇P — a proposition's modal status, once fixed, does not vary across modal space. Earned at [§2.1](<2.1 The S5 Pipeline.md>) as a theorem — rather than imported as an axiom — and set out line by line at [§2.1.10](<2.1.10 Necessary Possibility.md>); the literature's S5 *Euclidean Axiom* (◇P → □◇P) is the same content the argument derives rather than assumes. Applied to the Cartesian certainty of change (◇C, [§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>)), it lifts that certainty to the Necessary Possibility of Change (□◇C, L3, [§2.3](<2.3 Necessary Possibility of Change.md>)). Established in [§2.1.10](<2.1.10 Necessary Possibility.md>).

**Necessary Possibility of Change** · **L3** · *Lemma toward Triconditional Necessity.* The possibility of change is necessary: □◇C. The lift of the bare ◇C of [§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>) (Cartesian certainty of change) to its necessitated form by a single application of the Necessary Possibility Theorem ([§2.1.10](<2.1.10 Necessary Possibility.md>), ◇P → □◇P) under modus ponens. It is stronger than ◇C — the possibility now holds across all of modal structure — yet weaker than the unconditional necessity of the Conditions (□(T∧S∧Φ), [§2.5](<2.5 Triconditional Necessity.md>)): it is the necessitated antecedent that the structural requirement □(◇C → T∧S∧Φ) ([§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>)) discharges into that conclusion. *See* Cartesian Certainty ([§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>)); Necessary Possibility ([§2.1.10](<2.1.10 Necessary Possibility.md>)); Structural Requirement ([§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>)). Established in [§2.3](<2.3 Necessary Possibility of Change.md>).

**Necessity** · *Definition.* A proposition is necessary (□P) when it really could not fail to be the case. What is necessary does not lapse: there is no configuration with a square circle, no configuration with 2 + 2 = 5. Necessity can attach to possibility itself — □◇P is true just when the permission does not lapse in any configuration. Established in [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>).

**Necessity entails Possibility** · **R1** · *Result of the T-Axiom and the Actuality–Possibility Principle.* Whatever is necessary is possible: □P → ◇P; by contraposition, whatever is not possible is not necessary (¬◇P → ¬□P). Falls out of the T-axiom (□P → P) composed with the *actuality implies possibility* principle of [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>) (P → ◇P). The result carries the load wherever a necessity ascription has to answer to a verdict on possibility — invoked at [§6.1](<6.1 Greatness.md>) against the classical-theist reply that God's necessity insulates God from the no-way-possible verdict. Established in [§2.1.4](<2.1.4 Modal Stability.md>).

**Necessity of Each Condition** · **R6** · *Result of R5.* Each of the three Conditions is instantiated in every possible world in its own right: Temporality is necessary (□T), Spatiality is necessary (□S), Physicality is necessary (□Φ). Since necessity distributes over conjunction, the joint Necessity of Nature (□(T∧S∧Φ), Theorem 6) is equivalent to □T ∧ □S ∧ □Φ; each conjunct is also secured directly by the Parasitic Negation reductio that forecloses its own absence (§[§2.4.6](<2.4.6 Succession Requires Temporality.md>)–2.4.8). Established in [§2.5](<2.5 Triconditional Necessity.md>).

**Necessity of Nature** · **T6** · *Theorem 6.* Temporality, Spatiality, and Physicality are necessarily co-instantiated: □(T ∧ S ∧ Φ). The headline theorem of the argument and the thesis of the book. Derived by modus ponens — the Necessary Possibility of Change (□◇C, [§2.3](<2.3 Necessary Possibility of Change.md>)) discharged against the Structural Requirement (□(◇C → T∧S∧Φ), [§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>)) yields □(T∧S∧Φ); declared formally at [§2.8.5](<2.8.5 Necessity of Nature.md>) once the chapter-2 defense of the premises has earned the result. Chapter 3's structurally independent, separately cuttable lines confirm it from several directions at once.

***noesis noeseos noesis*** · "Thought thinking itself" (Greek); Aristotle's description of the *Prime Mover* in *Metaphysics* XII.

**Null State (∅)** · *Definition.* Absolute nothingness. Not a state of Reality; the absence of any state. Distinguished from vacuum (which is structured emptiness within Reality) and from absence-of-X (which is a determinate fact within Reality). Cannot be a contrast class for Reality because it cannot be specified ([§2.7.1](<2.7.1 Null State (∅).md>)).

**Ontological Identity** · **T4** · *Theorem 4.* Being in Nature ↔ T ∧ S ∧ Φ. Nature read from the side of being — any being just is what persists distinguished in S and succeeding in T; there is no residue. The third of three readings composing the Triconditional Identity ([§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>)); together they are three logical-categorical readings of one Nature: modal (necessity), nomological (law), ontological (being). Established in [§2.6.8](<2.6.8 Ontological Identity.md>).

**Parasitic Negation** · **L2** · *Lemma toward Negation Seal.* Let D be one of T, S, or Φ. The natural-language negation associated with each domain — 'never' / 'no first moment' for T, 'nowhere' / 'no place' for S, 'no causal medium' / 'no persistence-being' for Φ — operates as a quantifier internal to D, not as an external denial of D. No world coherently describable as containing the emergence of D from its own absence is available, since any putative emergence would itself instantiate D-structure. Paired with the *Negation Seal* (Result 2, C2): a candidate world described as lacking D is either incoherent or has truth-conditions that already require D-structure — no third option. Established in [§2.1.5](<2.1.5 The S5 Bottleneck.md>).

**Perfection, Divine** · *Concept.* The maxima-composition attribute: God possesses every great-making property to the maximum compatible degree and lacks every limitation. *Perfectio* (from *perficere*) names the state of having no deficiency and no remainder. The doctrine is the synthesizing capstone of the classical attribute system — what holds the individual attributes together as the description of one being rather than a list. The argument runs the perfection-composition test as a three-horn argument: the perfections compose either by an *exclusive standard* (each defined by negation of a contingent feature, jointly producing the ∅-equivalent Supernatural Preclusion forecloses), by a *propagating standard* (each defined by maximization along its own scale, producing incoherence where the scales conflict — maximum power vs. maximum simplicity, maximum knowledge of contingents vs. maximum immutability), or by an *analogy escape* (each predicate analogically related to its creaturely cousin, with the analogy unable to bear the structural load of composing a single being). All three horns close. *See also* Maximally Great Being; Aseity Forfeiture; Three-Horn Dilemma. Established in [§6.2.4](<6.2.4 Perfection.md>).

**Performative Self-Refutation** · *Named Result.* A denial that instantiates what it denies. The denial of Cartesian Certainty (◇C, [§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>)) is performative self-refutation: to deny that change is possible is itself to change one's epistemic state, which presupposes the possibility of change. The denial of Necessary Possibility (◇P → □◇P, [§2.1.3](<2.1.3 Modal Constitution.md>)) is similarly self-refuting once the real/Reality identity is granted.

**Persistence** · *Concept.* Staying the same through change: a thing *persists*, *endures*, or *remains* across a transition, as a river persists while its water turns over. *Endures* and *persists* carry technical readings in the philosophy of time (perdurantism and endurantism). Established in [§1.5.8](<1.5.8 Persistence.md>).

**Physical** · *Definition.* Occupying T ∧ S ∧ Φ. Anything that is in time, somewhere in space, and persists as a causal relatum is physical. The Ontological Identity ([§2.6.8](<2.6.8 Ontological Identity.md>)) establishes that there is no residue beyond the triad — anything that is a being in Nature instantiates T∧S∧Φ.

**Physicality** · **Φ** · *Condition.* The formal Condition of Reality such that exchange is necessarily possible. It is not stuff that occupies T and S, but the structural feature that lets there be the-same-thing-across-moments at all. Its three properties are *Distinctness* (relata of interaction are non-identical), *Substantiality* (bears and transmits causal properties), and *Persistence* (remains through the transition it carries). Chapter 1 introduces the corresponding ordinary term, Substance; Chapter 2 introduces and defends this formal register. Formal variable Φ. Established in [§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>).

**Possibility** · *Definition.* A proposition is possible (◇P) when it really could be the case. Distinguished in [§1.2.1](<1.2.1 Possibility.md>) from *logically possible* (broader: every real possibility is logically possible, not the reverse), *conceivable* (a reach of imagination), *epistemically possible* (a fact about a knower's evidence), *nomologically possible* (broader on standard readings), and *probable* (sorts what is in the running). Necessary truths count as possible. Established in [§1.2](<1.2 Modal Status.md>).

**Possible World** · *Concept.* A complete and consistent way the world could be. The framework treats possibility as a feature of Reality rather than an external accessibility relation; possible worlds are alternative configurations of the structural medium, not separate substances.

**Principle of Modal Invariance** · *Principle.* What is structurally necessary holds across all of Reality, including across cosmological cycles. Established in [§2.1.7](<2.1.7 Two Readings.md>) and used to license the macro-structural transmission across the bounce in [§7.6](<7.6 Singularity.md>).

**Probability** · *Concept.* A measure assigning real values in [0, 1] to members of a sigma-algebra of events over a sample space. Every probability is conditional on the modal structure that fixes the sample space; probability questions are asked within the frame, not of it. Probability precision is bounded above by modal-representation resolution ([§5.1.5](<5.1.5 Fine-Tuning Argument.md>)).

**PSR (Principle of Sufficient Reason)** · *Principle.* Every fact has an explanation. The structural argument honors PSR for Nature — Nature exists because non-existence (∅) is not a coherent alternative — but rejects the demand for an explanation outside Nature, because any such explanation would be a state, and ∅ is not a state.

**Real** · *Concept.* What is the case. The real and Reality are co-extensive: there is nothing real outside Reality, and Reality is exhausted by what is real.

**Reality** · *Definition.* The totality of what is real. Co-extensive with the medium of change. Has no contrast class — nothing is outside Reality, because anything that could be specified would be part of it ([§1.1](<1.1 Reality.md>)). *See also* Identity of Reality and Nature.

**S5 Axiom** · *Principle.* The modal logic in which ◇□P ↔ □P and ◇P ↔ □◇P both hold. The standard logic for metaphysical necessity. The present argument is compatible with S5, but the current proof runs the needed invariance through Necessary Possibility (T1, [§2.1.3](<2.1.3 Modal Constitution.md>), [§2.1.10](<2.1.10 Necessary Possibility.md>)) and applies it to Cartesian Certainty ([§2.2](<2.2 Cartesian Certainty.md>)), yielding the Necessary Possibility of Change lemma (L3, □◇C, [§2.3](<2.3 Necessary Possibility of Change.md>)).

***Sein-zum-Tode*** · Heidegger's "being-toward-death."

***Soziale Marktwirtschaft*** · The German social market economy, invoked in the political application of the framework.

**Space** · **S** · *Condition.* The occupiable separateness that actually obtains: the extended interval across which positions stand genuinely apart. Chapter 1 introduces Space as a member of the Time/Space/Substance triad; Chapter 2 formalizes its structural role as Spatiality (S). Established in [§1.4](<1.4 Three Conditions.md>).

**Spacetime** · *Concept.* The physical realization of T↔S — Time and Space compose into a single manifold. Established in [§7.5](<7.5 Binding of the Conditions.md>).

**Spatiality** · **S** · *Condition.* The formal Condition of Reality such that distinction is necessarily possible. It is not a container of locations, but the structural feature without which distinction could not run. Its three properties are *Extension* (positions separated by a real interval), *Exclusivity* (positions exclusively occupiable), and *Traversability* (the interval is crossable). Chapter 1 introduces the corresponding ordinary term, Space; Chapter 2 introduces and defends this formal register. Formal variable S. Established in [§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>).

***Spiritus*** · Latin for breath, spirit; the structural concept that the framework reads as a phenomenological description of Φ-persistence in self-modeling configurations.

**Structural Requirement** · *Concept.* The possibility of change requires the joint instantiation of the three Conditions: □(◇C → T ∧ S ∧ Φ). Premise P4 of the spine: discharged against the Necessary Possibility of Change (□◇C, [§2.3](<2.3 Necessary Possibility of Change.md>)) by modus ponens to yield the Necessity of Nature (□(T∧S∧Φ), Theorem 6). Distinct from the *Structural Role* entry, which names what T, S, and Φ each are. *See* Necessary Possibility of Change; Necessity of Nature (Theorem 6). Established in [§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>).

**Structural Role** · *Definition.* A function any possible medium must perform for change to occur. T, S, Φ are the three structural roles. The roles are distinguished from their occupiers: any configuration that performs the role is the role for that configuration. Each role shows itself under the three readings composing the Triconditional Identity ([§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>)): under the Modal Identity, as a feature whose joint instantiation with the other two is co-extensive with ◇C; under the Triconditional Cross-Entailment, as cross-entailing the conjunction of the other two; under the Ontological Identity, as a structural requirement of being in Nature.

**Substance** · **Φ** · *Condition.* The persisting carrier that actually runs through change: that which holds and transmits causal properties across transitions. Chapter 1 introduces Substance as a member of the Time/Space/Substance triad; Chapter 2 formalizes its structural role as Physicality (Φ). Established in [§1.4](<1.4 Three Conditions.md>).

**Succession** · *Concept.* One of the three structural requirements of Change. Identified with T.

**Supernatural Preclusion** · **T8** · *Theorem 8.* The classical package of atemporality, aspatiality, immateriality, simplicity, and pure actuality faces pressure when paired with determinate active predicates. Cognition, agency, causal action, and relation incur role-level burdens; a proposal withdrawing all differentiating content faces an ∅-like specification problem. The theorem supplies an analysis framework for Chapter 6, not a definition-level identity of every classical or apophatic God-concept with ∅. Established in [§6.1](<6.1 Greatness.md>).

**Supervenience** · *Concept.* One range of facts is fixed by another: A *supervenes on* B when there can be no difference in A without some difference in B. The supervenient (A) varies only as the subvenient (B) varies; the canonical case is the mental supervening on the physical. Established in [§1.5.4](<1.5.4 Supervenience.md>).

**Temporality** · **T** · *Condition.* The formal Condition of Reality such that succession is necessarily possible. It is not a container in which events occur, but the structural feature without which succession could not run. Its three properties are *Asymmetry* (before/after is irreversible), *Transitivity* (ordering composes globally), and *Directionality* (before-states carry influence to after-states). Chapter 1 introduces the corresponding ordinary term, Time; Chapter 2 introduces and defends this formal register. Formal variable T. Established in [§2.4](<2.4 Structural Requirement.md>).

**Three Conceptions of God** · *Definition.* *Classical*: the God of scholastic theology, characterized by atemporality, aspatiality, immateriality, simplicity, and pure actuality. *Revised*: an embedded deity of process, open, or panentheist theology, participating in structural roles. *Scriptural*: a personal, historical deity who acts at a time, in a place, through a medium. The present argument maps different pressures and costs for each; it does not foreclose every theological reinterpretation ([§6.10](<6.10 No Exit.md>)).

**Trilemma Closure** · *Concept.* An analysis of articulated classical-theist active-ground claims. Retaining determinate active predicates incurs role-level conditions; revising the deity into an embedded agent incurs an aseity/ultimacy cost; strict apophasis or essence-priority gives up the relevant positive grounding and predicate claims while carrying a determinacy burden. The trilemma does not prove every transcendent posit contradictory. Established in [§6.10](<6.10 No Exit.md>).

**Through w* Argument** · *Concept.* The reductio of Plantinga's modal ontological argument given in Appendix B item 16: where Plantinga's premise is ◇□G (some world at which MGB exists necessarily), the bilateral mirror is ◇□¬G (some world w* at which MGB necessarily does not). The definitional collapse of the classical attributes to ∅ — negation of T, S, Φ jointly — licenses ◇□¬G at w*. By S5's bilateral mirror ◇□¬G → □¬G, and ∴ □¬G. The argument cuts both ways; the theist's tool delivers the atheist's conclusion when applied to a being defined by negation of the structural roles. *See* Bilateral Symmetry; Appendix B item 16.

**Time** · **T** · *Condition.* The occupiable succession that actually runs: the order in which moments are distinct, directed, and lasting. Chapter 1 introduces Time as a member of the Time/Space/Substance triad; Chapter 2 formalizes its structural role as Temporality (T). Established in [§1.4](<1.4 Three Conditions.md>).

***tota simul*** · "All at once" (Latin); Boethius's name for the eternal present in which God comprehends all time.

**Triconditional Cross-Entailment** · **T3** · *Theorem 3.* Nature read from the cross-entailment among the three roles — T, S, Φ are one necessary structure apprehended under three readings: T ↔ (S ∧ Φ), S ↔ (T ∧ Φ), Φ ↔ (T ∧ S), with pairwise results T↔S, S↔Φ, T↔Φ. The second of three readings composing the Triconditional Identity ([§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>)). Established in [§2.6.7](<2.6.7 Triconditional Cross-Entailment.md>).

**Triconditional Identity** · **T5** · *Theorem 5.* Nature under its three identical readings, composed into one: N ↔ □(T ∧ S ∧ Φ), N ↔ □◇C, □(T ∧ S ∧ Φ) ↔ □◇C. The Modal Identity, Triconditional Cross-Entailment, and Ontological Identity compose one Nature — three logical-categorical readings of one structural identity (modal, nomological, ontological), crossed perpendicularly with the three conditions (T, S, Φ) to form the 3×3 grid of nine cells [§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>) names. *Fact of Nature* survives as a local descriptive phrase — each Triconditional establishes one of three identical facts of nature, jointly the constitutive facts the Triconditional Identity comprises through its three Conditions — but is no longer the Theorem-5 name. Established in [§2.6.10](<2.6.10 Triconditional Identity.md>); [§2.8.6](<2.8.6 Exclusivity of Nature.md>).

**Type / Token** · *Definition.* Type: a structural pattern. Token: an instance of the pattern. The structural argument fixes the type; tokens are the locus at which novelty enters Reality ([§7.7](<7.7 Cosmic History.md>)).

**Unity, Divine** · *Concept.* The classical attribute that God is one — not one among many, but uniquely one. *Unitas* unfolds in three classical sub-claims: simplicity (no metaphysical parts), uniqueness (no second God), and uniqueness-as-such (no possible second God). The argument honors the structural pressure each sub-claim reaches for and shows that none reaches a God. Simplicity, pressed honestly, names the absence of composability, which Nature itself instantiates as the necessary structural ground ([§6.2.1](<6.2.1 Simplicity.md>)). Uniqueness names the structural feature that the necessary structure has no contrast class outside itself ([§1.1](<1.1 Reality.md>)). Uniqueness-as-such is the modal claim that nothing else could occupy the role, which the Triconditional Identity (Theorem 5) already establishes for Nature, leaving no role for a second occupant. The doctrine's unity-language is exactly the structural feature Nature has been shown to instantiate; the relabeling move ('the necessary structure is God') changes the word while conceding the substance. *See also* Aseity Forfeiture. Established in [§6.2.2](<6.2.2 Unity.md>).

***via negativa*** · "The negative way" (Latin); apophatic theology, defining God by what God is not.

**Way–Possibility Convertibility** · **L7** · *Lemma toward Triconditional Necessity.* For any P: P is possible iff there is a way for P to be the case (◇P ↔ ∃ way(P)); equivalently, P is impossible iff there is no way for P to be the case. Possibility and way are convertible — each holds of all and only the same things, and neither is reducible to the other. Modal-field extension: contingency, necessity, and impossibility inherit way-structure; way-structure cannot stand contingently on a more-fundamental ground. Forward direction (way → possibility) denial is the Null State ([§2.7.1](<2.7.1 Null State (∅).md>)); reverse direction (possibility → way) denial describes nothing at all. Used at [§4.1.10](<4.1.10 The Source of Possibility.md>) (Modal Exclusivity, the no-source-for-◇ result) and [§6.2.1](<6.2.1 Simplicity.md>) (the way-wedge against classical simplicity). Established in [§3.2.5](<3. Convergence.md>).


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← [Symbols](Symbols.md) | [Notes](Notes.md) →
