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Figure 2.2
State vs. Retention: A Temporal Distinction
Period 2: State Group
Es
Execution State
gone when process ends
Ws
Workflow State
position lost at termination
Cp
Checkpoint State
serialized
snapshot survives restart
Period 3 & 5: Retention Group
Ss
Session Memory
session-scoped
Wm
Working Memory
task-scoped scratch space
Sm
Semantic Memory
→ persists
Em
Episodic Memory
→ persists
Key insight: You cannot retain a session's context before the session has a state to retain. State is the prerequisite for retention, which is why State occupies P2 and Retention occupies P3 and P5.
Each horizontal bar represents the lifespan of an element during system execution. Period 2 State elements (green) exist only for the duration of the execution they track and are lost when that execution ends (unless serialized, as Cp demonstrates). Period 3 and 5 Retention elements (purple) survive beyond the immediate execution step, holding information available for future reasoning. The period boundary between State and Retention is not a judgment call. It is a consequence of the dependency condition.