premise-identity-is-bidirectionally-transformable
OUT derived (depth 3)
Premise identity can be both destroyed (via dialectical challenge adding justifications) and created (via convert-to-premise removing them), with both directions preserving the dependents invariant — making premise/derived status a fully reversible structural property of the network.
Summary
The distinction between a premise and a derived node is not permanent — it can be flipped in either direction. A premise can become derived when someone challenges it (adding a justification), and a derived node can become a premise (by stripping its justifications). Both operations keep the network's internal bookkeeping consistent, so this transformation is safe and fully reversible.
Justifications
SL — Both transformations maintain the dependents index and propagate truth correctly, so the structural boundary between premise and derived node is crossable in either direction without corrupting network state.
Antecedents (all must be IN):
- convert-to-premise-preserves-dependents-invariant — Converting a derived node to a premise correctly maintains the dependents index by removing the node from former antecedents' dependents sets — the same invariant maintained by every other network mutation.
- challenge-destroys-premise-identity — When a premise is challenged, it loses its defining characteristic: premise identity emerges from absence of justifications, but challenge adds a justification (converting the premise to a justified node), meaning the target's truth value becomes conditional on the challenge node being OUT rather than unconditionally held — challenge reclassifies the target in the node type system.
Dependents
These beliefs depend on this one:
- identity-transformation-is-complete-and-reliable — Premise identity is bidirectionally transformable (challenge destroys premise identity, convert-to-premise restores it) and the destructive direction achieves full reliability through crash-safe semantics-preserving propagation — making identity transformation a complete and reliable lifecycle operation in both directions.