Standing Test

Canonical definition

A two-question test, runnable by the holder of a Belief and by an observer alike, that settles whether positional value is among what maintains a Belief held against an available decohered Referent. The first question asks whether a decohered Referent is available for the Belief. The second asks whether the Individual's social standing would change were the Individual to revise the Belief to obey the Referent, with the Individual's material provision held constant. Where both answers are yes, the Mimetic Drive to False Belief is among what maintains the Belief, whether or not Contactless Updating brought it there; where a Referent is available and revision would cost nothing in standing, the Belief is held by coupled Evidence alone, of which self-coupling is the minimum, and Contactless Updating maintains it. The test reads present maintenance, not the route by which the Belief arrived. The second question concerns what the Individual's community would do rather than why the Individual holds the Belief, so Source Opacity does not bar the holder from it, although the holder's answer is exposed to Confabulation and an observer's is usually the better one. The two findings call for different remedies, and where both operate both are owed: Contactless Updating is answered by maintaining the trace of the settling test and the operation of the Provenance Rule, and the Mimetic Drive to False Belief by lowering the cost in standing of revising the Belief.