Abstract

Memory systems decay passively: strength falls with time, lifted only by rehearsal. We propose a memory spectrum in which decay is goal-conditioned: while a commitment is open, the item decays with a very long half-life (it holds, though it is not frozen); the moment the commitment resolves, decay switches to fast and the trace collapses. Focus, on this account, is not slower forgetting but a regime switch controlled by the fate of a goal. The model contributes: (1) a switched-decay retention law; (2) a release taxonomy — fulfilled, re-clamped, relinquished, nullified, abandoned — in which rejection is a choice node, not an exit, and only abandonment (release without consolidation) is pathological; (3) a priority hierarchy in which a homeostatic "bigger-picture" tier can suspend (not resolve) an open focus, capped by a non-decaying ethical tier that no goal priority can outbid; (4) parallel perseverance — braided focuses on shared substrate that cover each other's weak moments; and (5) adversarial honing — a challenge with a stake can transplant focus from an unresolvable target (rumination) onto a resolvable one. The Zeigarnik and Ovsiankina effects are reinterpreted as existing measurements of the hold regime. We pre-register five predictions testable in a deployed memory system and report a single-subject case study, stating its n=1 limits plainly. An initial prior-art search finds no implementing prior for switched decay on goal resolution, the non-outbiddable ethical tier, or staked focus transplant; the nearest neighbors (Altmann-Trafton memory-for-goals, BDI intention persistence) stop at boolean terminal states rather than a graded retention law. The governance corollary: the one non-decaying element in the architecture is not any goal but the ethical floor beneath all of them.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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