In 4QX, “structure” is whatever can contain.
A structure is a boundary that creates an inside/outside distinction.
Once you take that seriously, the whole square snaps into place.
The left side is containment, full stop
The Form side (Left) isn’t “static” in the boring sense; it’s static potential—the shaped capacity to make distinctions and hold them.
- P — Pattern (TL): public containment.
Definitions, schemas, laws, protocols, shared names.
This is the Class container—what we can agree on. - R — Resource (BL): private containment.
Capabilities, assets, attention, identity, “self.”
This is the Instance container—what I can actually bear and spend.
In other words: P and R are both “boxes”—just boxes with different ownership and visibility.
The right side is transition, full stop
The Flux side (Right) is not about “having” but about becoming: boundary-crossings, consequences, and trace.
- E — Event (TR): outward crossing.
Something leaves a container and becomes seam-visible: an offer, a commit, a message, a move.
E is “what happened” in a way that others can see. - M — Metric (BR): inward settlement.
The private burn: measured consequences, execution reality, what the system can integrate as result.
M is “what it cost / what it yielded” internally.
So: E is the act of crossing a boundary; M is the internal accounting that makes the crossing real.
Two teloi: how containment metabolises into time
What 4QX is really describing is not a map of four nouns, but a metabolic loop:
Form becomes Flux, Flux refines Form.
Structure is not merely described; it is spent and reconstituted.
That’s exactly what the two triangles are doing.
Class Telos: “Make the Pattern happen.”
- Impulse: P → E
“I have a schema; I want to see it instantiated in public.” - Character: amplification
Pushes structure into the world as commitments, then learns from what the world returns.
Instance Telos: “Let the Resource survive the Event.”
- Impulse: R ↔ E (via the seam)
“I have limited capability; I need to metabolise events without losing coherence.” - Character: correction
Pulls experience back into the self, updating the internal model so the next cycle is less wasteful.
So you can say, very cleanly:
4QX is the metabolism of structure:
Abstract containment (sets/trees) is converted into concrete time (events/logs), and concrete time is digested back into refined containment.
Why “trees = sets = containment” is not just a math detail
Because containment is the only thing that can be owned.
A sharper formulation is:
Ownership is enforceable boundary.
To own is to control what counts as inside, and to exclude what doesn’t.
- You can own a box (a container, a namespace, a capability boundary).
- You can’t own a flow in the same sense; you can only participate in it, be affected by it, or measure it.
This is why the inner domain matters:
- Privacy (BL) is a closed box by construction: it’s where sovereignty lives.
- Public (TL↔TR seam) is an open interface: it’s where crossing is allowed, legible, and replayable.
Or in the 4QX idiom:
The missing BL↔BR edge isn’t a moral stance; it’s a structural prohibition.
No private interior gets a private back-channel into another interior. All effects must surface at the seam.
That’s the geometry of privacy, not merely the policy.
The “physics of opening and closing boxes” is the six-phase cycle
Your “boxes” metaphor is strong because it lines up with the operational sequence:
- IStart (Pow): Open the private box (BL) and enumerate what could fit.
“Given my resources, what patterns are even viable?” - IDo (Sep): Select and publish—put a chosen item in the public outbox (TL→TR).
“Here is the offer I’m willing to make visible.” - CStart (Pair): Bind and ship—lock an agreement at the seam.
“This offer + this acceptance becomes a commitment.” - CDo (Union): Execute privately—compose the pieces into reality (TR→BR).
“Do the work; incur the actual burn.” - CFinish (Empty): Discharge back into Pattern—publish what was learned (BR→TL).
“Update the public structure: what proved true, what didn’t, what now generalises.” - IFinish (Repl): Reintegrate into Resource—digest the event into the self (TR→BL).
“Update my internal state so the next cycle is less blind.”
So the square isn’t “administrative bureaucracy.” It’s a thermodynamics of boundaries:
4QX turns forms, lists, and boxes into a living engine
by making every opening/closing action (1) seam-visible when it must be, (2) private when it must be, and (3) cyclically accountable so containment and transition continually refine each other.