Status

Canonical definition

Status is the aggregate Object-valuation that other Individuals direct at a given Individual-as-Object. Because Individuals are Objects whose Decision Hubs also generate valuations (the Reciprocal Valuation Property), Status is constituted entirely within other Individuals' valuation architectures and cannot be directly purchased or held. An Individual's own valuation of themselves is not a member of the aggregate, that valuation being Self-as-Object rather than Individual-as-Object; what reaches Status from it is the conduct it produces, read by others through the ordinary influence route (Self-Standing Confirmation Principle). It is influenced through the substrate Objects an Individual holds and the occupancies the field installs, which raise the valuations other Individuals' Decision Hubs assign to the Individual, and it remains after an occupancy is vacated because it is the time-average of those valuations, not a reading of what is currently held, and the standing so retained is the rung against which Rung Loss is measured. Status decomposes into three components following the canonical A-I-M decomposition: Status-A (the aggregate A-component of other Individuals' valuations, reflecting the Individual's functional contribution to others' survival and security needs), Status-I (the aggregate I-component, reflecting the Individual's contribution to others' genuine mastery, meaning, and relational depth), and Status-PM (the aggregate PM-component, reflecting the positional advantage, network leverage, and Status signal the Individual carries beyond A-I adequacy). Status-A is bounded by the network's actual need for the Individual's functional contribution and attenuates when needs are met. Status-I deepens with genuine engagement without producing rivalry. Only Status-PM exhibits the pathological properties identified throughout the AIM framework: non-satiation (Axiom 6), self-reinforcement through mimetic transmission, compounding through the Observability Gradient, invisibility through Source Opacity (Axiom 3), and parasitic extraction from A-I Buffer. Status-PM self-reinforces because the Objects that constitute it (other Individuals) are themselves valuing subjects whose PM-valuations are influenced by other valuing subjects' PM-valuations. Status-A does not self-reinforce (C's need for B's plumbing does not increase A's need for B's plumbing). Status-I may be influenced informationally (learning about B's qualities from C's assessment) but this is accurate updating, not inflation.