AIM Framework glossary
Mimetic Premium (PM, the Premium)
Canonical definition
Mimetic Premium (PM). The Mimetic Premium is the volume of Mimetic (M) signal added to the Common-Currency Scalar (the Signed Valuation the Decision Hub computes for an Object) over and above the Object's A-functional and I-productive value, and propagated through the valuation loop on each cycle. It is the M-portion of the Salience an observer assigns, Referent-less by construction (the part of the valuation left once A and I are accounted for), and the valuation is the observer's own (Salience-Emission Asymmetry). Because the same Salience signal is read off different Objects in different domains, PM appears as a different quantity in each: in a market as the component of price above the A-I base (Ptotal = PA + PI + PM), and across a population as its aggregate, Status (the Status-Premium Duality and Salience-Status Identity). The Mimetic Premium is architecturally a parasite (the Emergent Parasitism Principle): by Object Parasitism it attaches only to an A- or I-Object substrate and never stands alone; having no satiation signal it does not self-terminate but extracts perpetually; and a large Premium requires concealment to persist, hiding its extraction from the host until over-extraction threatens the host's viability. Architecturally, the Premium is the identification cost of the Observer's Salience-valuation function carried into the integrated valuation: the function is non-contingent and its supercritical pathology is entailed, so the only contingent quantity is the loop gain's position relative to threshold (Appendix A, M5b functional derivation; A.5.1). The short form Premium is sanctioned and may be used with any determiner wherever the Mimetic sense is unambiguous, no other defined term ending in Premium existing to compete with it; the abbreviation PM is sanctioned on the same footing. Term names always take the full form. The Premium is one conserved quantity read in three registers. In the generative register it is the M term of the Decision Hub's integration, PM = wM · UM(x): what the Mimetic channel contributes to the integrated valuation of Object x (the fast-layer correspondent is the βM(t) term of Appendix A's valuation equation). In the operational register it is the component of a transaction price above the A-I base, PM in the Price Decomposition — the register in which the Premium is measured, since prices are observable and Decision Hubs are not — with sM = PM/Ptotal its share of the price (Price Shares). In the population register it is Status-PM, the low-pass aggregate of the Premiums computed across observers (Status-Premium Duality). Nothing is generated in one register and lost in another: the three are the same surplus over the A-I substrate, produced at the Decision Hub, settled in the price, and accumulated as Status. In the operational register the Premium is measured net of the bounded and terminating residues granted at Chapter 12, Section 12.22, and of the bounded allocative-and-buffer band recognised in Chapter 12's Position Statement, so that lawful recovery of cost and provision against unforecastable future deficits are not counted as Premium.
Explanation
The Mimetic Premium is the extra value an Object carries just because others treat it as being important, on top of what actually makes it useful. Architecturally it is the part of the wanting-signal contributed by the mimetic channel, added to a single valuation the Decision Hub runs on and carried forward each cycle. The same underlying signal shows up differently depending on where you look: in a market it is the part of the price sitting above what the Object is worth for use or for doing something with; across a whole population it is what we call status. It never exists on its own. Like a parasite, it always attaches to something with real A or I value; it has no natural stopping point, so it keeps growing; and because we don't feel ourselves creating it, we construct different explanations that keep it hidden, because to name it and expose it is to reveal that what it consists of is position rather than function, and others would refuse to accept a trade that raised your status at the cost of their own, whether via money or simply deference and attention.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct (Latent Variable).
Derivation
Chapter 8, Section 8.6.1; Chapter 8, Section 8.6.2; Chapter 8, Section 8.13.1.