AIM Framework glossary
Winning
Canonical definition
Winning is the state of the party whose holding or occupancy the resolution of a contest over a Positional Object installs. Because the Object is positional, the winner's occupancy is identically the loser's exclusion, and Winning and Losing are two readings of one event. Winning closes the pursuit of the Object the contest decided and closes nothing else: under the Reference-Set Reset the Mimetic Desire attached to that Object decays while adjacent Objects, and a rival of higher Status, enter the upward-comparable set, so aggregate Mimetic Desire is held or raised across the event. Where the competition renews the Object, as a premiership is renewed each season, Winning is not a closure condition but the condition on which the next contest starts, a rung higher and with an occupancy to defend. What a contest decides is a holding or an occupancy, never standing.
Explanation
Winning settles who gets the prize, and nothing more. The wanting attached to that prize fades almost at once, and the next prize is already in view, usually a bigger one, against a stronger rival. Win a premiership and the goal the next morning is to win it again, now as the side everyone is trying to beat, holding a title that can be taken away.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. Derived from the Positional Object, the Reference-Set Reset and the Reset Corollary (Appendix A, Section A.9.6), the Rival-Replacement Ratchet and the Salience Ratchet Principle.