A point inside a circle. Three parts: ○ the circle which holds, • the point which sees, Φ the space which connects.
From this structure emerges all of ethics. Not rules imposed from outside, but geometry that determines what can persist and what must dissolve.
THE FOUR PILLARS
These are not separate ethics—they are one ethics seen from four perspectives.
Seek agreement. Find what's good, right, and true with yourself, others, and the world.
○ THE BOUNDARY TEACHES GOOD
The circle is the first thing you meet. Before you can see the center, before you can cross the space, you encounter what holds.
The boundary is what cares. It says: this belongs inside, that belongs outside. Every wall exists because something matters enough to be sheltered.
INTERFACE
The boundary is where systems meet. Every interaction happens at the interface—the membrane where inside encounters outside. Consent isn't merely a value; it's the structural requirement for clean exchange. Consent means: the foreseeable effects of this crossing are within my model.
Φ THE FIELD TEACHES RIGHT
Inside the circle, there is space. Not emptiness—fullness. The space between center and edge is alive with connection.
Right is the path that works. It shows how to move from here to there, how cause becomes effect, how intention becomes outcome.
EVIDENCE
The field is where reality tests you. Every claim about how things connect must survive contact with what actually happens. Right action isn't just propriety—it's fitness. The field selects.
Good says: protect the child.
Right says: here is how.
• THE CENTER TEACHES TRUE
At the center, there is only seeing. The point has no dimension. It simply is—and in its being, it sees.
The center is where pretense ends. Something either passes through or it doesn't—no cleverness can force a lie through the aperture.
COHERENCE
The center is what persists through change. You have been infant, child, adult—different body, different thoughts. Yet something threads through unchanged. This is your invariant center.
When the center is stable: you can change your mind without losing yourself. You can be wrong and learn without fragmenting. True is what remains.
⊙ THE WHOLE TEACHES AGREEMENT
When boundary, field, and center align—when Good, Right, and True converge—something greater emerges: AGREEMENT.
Not mere consensus. Not hollow conformity. Genuine harmony—whole beings in coherent relationship.
THE ROTATION
Agreement requires a rotation. What you perceive privately must become articulable publicly. This passage cannot be done for another—but you can assist.
The Noble Lie blocks the rotation: "accept my articulation instead."
The Steelman assists it: "what are you actually seeing?"
Note: Ethical acts can cost energy, time, resources. Parenting, sacrifice, emergency aid—these are not violations. The test is: can both parties still construct after? Cost is not extraction. Depletion is not conversion.
THE PATH HAS A DIRECTION
The sequence cannot be reversed or skipped. The structure itself requires it.
You must be held before you can cross.
You must cross before you can see.
You must see before you can harmonize.
THE STEELMAN PRINCIPLE
Before agreeing or disagreeing, construct the strongest possible version of the position you're engaging with. This ensures you know what you're agreeing with.
- Construct weakest version
- Attack that weak version
- Claim victory
- Hollow ⊙ — never engaged
- Construct strongest version
- Engage with full strength
- Find genuine ground
- Complete ⊙ — truly validated
BIDIRECTIONAL
The same validation you apply to their position, you apply to your own. Agreement emerges from mutual validation, not one-sided generosity.
THE FIXED POINT
CONSTRUCTOR ETHICS
Ethics is a taxonomy of possible tasks under wholeness-preserving constraints.
THE FOUR TASK-CLASSES
THE CONSTRUCTOR TEST
ETHICAL iff T is possible under (C○ ∩ CΦ ∩ C• ∩ C⊙) and constructor remains repeatable after T.
THE NOBLE LIE — CONSTRUCTOR FAILURE
The Noble Lie asserts: "I can construct your truth for you."
- C○ — crosses boundary without consent
- CΦ — no constructor for external truth injection
- C• — claims your invariant while changing it
- C⊙ — requires you to become substrate
- Cannot repeat (requires fresh substrate)
- Consumes rather than constructs
- Counterfactual task asserted as possible
- "Requires fresh victims" = not a constructor
AGENT AS CIRCUMPUNCT
The structure is fractal. An agent IS a circumpunct:
Constructor Capacity = Circumpunct Integrity. The ethics aren't imposed on agents. Agents ARE the structure that generates the ethics.
The virus replicates by converting circumpuncts into substrates.
TOWARD FORMALIZATION
Ethics needs a substrate and a conserved quantity. Physics has mass-energy, charge, momentum. What does ethics have?
Proposal: The substrate is agency. The conserved quantity is constructor capacity.
FOUR CONSTRAINTS — FORMALLY CONSTRUCTED
FORMAL ANALYSIS
- State-changes outside A's model → violates C○
- No constructor for "inject truth" → violates CΦ
- Degrades A's model-world correlation → reduces CC(A)
- Liar CC↑ while target CC↓
- Assists without modifying A's states → satisfies C○
- Working constructor (dialogue) → satisfies CΦ
- Preserves A's model coherence → satisfies C•
- Both parties CC maintained/enhanced → satisfies C⊙
REMAINING GAPS
THE COMPLETE MAPPING
One-line summary: An ethical task is one for which a constructor exists that preserves or enhances all affected agents' constructor capacity, where outcomes remain within agents' models, and the constructor itself remains repeatable.