The Agency-Semantics Spine of Distinction Theory: Attention, Value, Goal, Meaning, and Action under Finite Capacity

Yining Wu · 2026-05-17

Agency-semantics spine of Distinction Theory. Treats attention, value, goal, meaning, and agency as finite-system roles in boundary maintenance under limited capacity. A distinction becomes attended when admitted into a finite update channel; valuable when it has causal boundary-gradient relevance; goal-relevant when the value ranking is stabilized into a policy orientation; meaningful when compressed into a task-sufficient actionable quotient; and agentic when updates or actions causally affect future boundary-maintenance loss.

@misc{wu2026fdsm0,
  author = {Yining Wu},
  title = {The Agency-Semantics Spine of Distinction Theory: Attention, Value, Goal, Meaning, and Action under Finite Capacity},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20257939},
}