State Is a Side Effect

State is not truth. State is residue.

Truth is the sequence of decisions. State is what remains afterward.

I. The Confusion Between State and Reality

Most systems treat state as reality:

current rows

latest values

stored snapshots

This is a category error.

State is a consequence of execution, not its justification.

II. State Has No Authority

State cannot explain itself.

Given a state, you cannot know:

which rules applied

which inputs mattered

which alternatives were rejected

State answers what is. It never answers why.

Authority belongs to decisions, not storage.

III. Mutating State Destroys History

When systems mutate state:

causality collapses

intent disappears

responsibility evaporates

UPDATE overwrites truth. DELETE erases evidence.

Once state is changed in place, the past is unrecoverable.

IV. Decisions Produce State, Not the Reverse

A lawful system flows as follows:

Intent → Decision → Event → Projection → State

Reversing this flow— deriving decisions from state— is fabrication.

State does not generate law. Law generates state.

V. Snapshots Are Compression, Not Truth

Snapshots optimize access. They compress history.

Compression is allowed only if the source remains intact.

When snapshots replace history, systems lose their right to claim correctness.

VI. Auditing State Is Meaningless

Auditing state means:

reading tables

exporting values

inspecting aggregates

This audits outcomes, not decisions.

Audit requires replay of decisions. State cannot be replayed.

VII. Final Conclusion

State is a side effect.

Treating it as authority produces:

unverifiable systems

broken audits

fabricated compliance

A lawful system:

records decisions as immutable events

treats state as disposable

rebuilds state at will from truth

Anything else mistakes residue for reality.