ContextPlosion · the seam between system and situation

A Catalogue of
Context Work

Being rational means working well inside a system. But no system contains the rules for its own application, and the sharpest decisions are usually about the system itself — which one to enter, how tightly to hold it, when to repair it, when to leave. Here are forty-four moves made at the seam between formal systems and the situations they serve: context creation as a form of decision making.

I

The Five Dimensions

Tap a dimension to isolate its coordinate across the whole catalogue.

II

The Catalogue

III

The Seam

One sentence from inside a system that has stopped making sense. Choose the act and the layer; the reading, the moves, and the risks follow.

The process was followed to the letter, and the result is nonsense.

SURFACE: a compliance report · FORCE: a system asking for help

Act · what you do to the context
Layer · what the context is made of

The reading, at this seam

Moves to reach for

How this act fails

IV

How Context Work Fails

No system contains the rules for its own application, and there is no outside to stand on. The craft is the seam itself: enter deliberately, hold lightly, repair honestly — and know, from inside one system, when it is time for another.