Events Are the Only Source of Truth

Truth is not what exists now. Truth is what happened.

Anything that does not preserve what happened cannot claim truth.

I. The False Authority of Current State

Most systems declare truth as:

current rows

latest values

active records

This is convenience, not correctness.

Current state is an answer to where we are. Truth answers how we got here.

II. Events Preserve Causality

An event records:

intent

decision

outcome

time

Causality lives between events.

Remove events, and you remove:

justification

accountability

replayability

Without causality, truth collapses.

III. Updates Fabricate Reality

UPDATE rewrites history. DELETE erases it.

A system that allows mutation permits fabrication.

Fabricated systems cannot be audited, because the past is no longer available.

IV. Events Are Immutable by Definition

An event:

is append-only

cannot be edited

cannot be deleted

If an “event” can change, it is not an event.

Immutability is not a feature. It is the definition.

V. Projections Are Disposable

Projections:

exist for performance

exist for access

exist for convenience

They are not truth.

If a projection is wrong, it must be rebuilt.

If rebuilding changes truth, truth never existed.

VI. Audit Requires Events

Audit asks:

what happened

in what order

under which law

Only events can answer this.

Tables cannot. Snapshots cannot. Logs cannot.

VII. Temporal Truth Depends on Events

To answer:

“What was true at time T?”

you must replay events up to T.

State cannot answer temporal questions. Events can.

VIII. Final Conclusion

Events are the only source of truth.

State is derived. Projections are derived. Reports are derived.

A lawful system:

records every decision as an immutable event

derives all state from events

treats anything mutable as disposable

Anything else is a reconstruction pretending to be truth.