Conviction & Conflict

Doctrine memes carry a single mutable conviction score. This is what turns belief into a dynamic force — and the seed of culture and politics. (A “custom” is just a doctrine whose conviction is invested in an affinity onto a praxis — the norm that it ought to be performed.)

How conviction moves

• Up: practising it, proximity to fellow holders, faction reinforcement.
• Down: neglect, environmental contradiction, active conflict dissonance.
• Traits scale the rates; recomputed at a low cadence (monthly/seasonal).

Conflict resolves itself

When someone holds two conflicting memes, the dissonance erodes both convictions (weighted by environment and traits); whichever hits the floor first is dropped. There’s no separate resolution algorithm — the scoring is the resolution.

At group scale, this same mechanism produces schism, reformation, and conversion. A reconciling position (for example, a liberal form of a faith) is modelled as a new meme with affinity to both former rivals.

Retention vs. acquisition

Prerequisites gate the acquisition of a meme, not its retention. If a doctrine that was a prerequisite for some praxis loses a conflict and is dropped, the downstream praxis is not revoked — you don’t forget how to forge if you lose your faith. (This needs to be stated explicitly in the model; flagged in Design Status.)