AIM Framework glossary
Hard Truth
Canonical definition
A Hard Truth is a Belief occupying the short-Decoherence-Time regime of the Decoherence Trichotomy, whose boundary is hard because a live, exogenous Referent governs it and reality re-imposes it continuously and at low cost to the enforcement mechanism, so that Coupling Strength is held low by constant reality-contact and the Cost of the Belief is borne by the world rather than by any excluded party. A Hard Truth stores no undischarged decoherence, because a Belief the world continuously confirms has no accumulating gap to release.
Explanation
A hard truth is hard because it is true. Reality keeps proving it, over and over, without anyone having to force the matter, so it feels solid and non-negotiable, and it is, because the world itself is holding it up. Nobody outside the belief is being made to pay for it.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct.