【Expression】Six Modes of Change — How the FireMatch Understand Change in the World

Document ID

Document ID: FM-ARCHIVE-0006
Release Time: 2026-01-11 20:12

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Official Archive Statement

This document is part of the FireMatch Official Public Archive System
and explains how the FireMatch Civilization, at the worldview level,
understands the fact that change is occurring.

This Archive Entry does not discuss:
how the world objectively changes, what the ultimate causes of change are,
or which physical or temporal models should be constructed.

This Archive Entry discusses only the following:
when change occurs, which kind of change the FireMatch Civilization believes it is encountering,
and how this belief forms a shared language of understanding.

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I. The Single Core Statement of the Six Modes of Change

The Six Modes of Change are: Wood / Flame / Moisture / Resin / Fungus / Light.

They form the philosophical framework by which the FireMatch understand change.

They do not answer “what actually happened in the world,”
but rather:

When change occurs,
what kind of change do we believe is taking place?

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II. Position and Boundaries

The Six Modes of Change are not:

• the substance of the world;
• the units of world composition;
• objective mechanisms of change;
• time itself;
• natural laws or physical models.

They are:

A classificatory philosophy of change-understanding,
formed through long-term perception, craftsman practice,
and comparative experience within the FireMatch Civilization.

This framework allows groups,
across locations, scales, and contexts,
to speak about change using a shared language.

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III. Notes on Time

Within the FireMatch path of understanding:

• change is perceived first;
• differences are then identified;
• rhythms are subsequently discovered;
• only after rhythms stabilize does time become a measurable scale.

Accordingly, the Six Modes of Change do not originate from a predefined temporal structure.
Light may be used for timing and measurement,
but this reflects a deeper stance:

time is established through the recognition of change, not the other way around.

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IV. How the Six Modes Are Defined

The Six Modes of Change are not defined by “what a material is,”
but by:

what is understood to be happening when change occurs.

They are not material nouns.
They are paradigms of change-understanding.

The same concrete material may express different change characteristics under different conditions.
The Six Modes focus consistently on how change unfolds, not what something is made of.

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V. Canonical Definitions of the Six Modes of Change

1. Wood

Change understood as: load-bearing, grain, cracking, deformation, structural continuity.
FireMatch understanding: the bones of the world.
Wood does not mean wood as a material; it means change understood as how structure holds, shifts, bears load, and ultimately deforms.

2. Flame

Change understood as: rupture, fixation, irreversibility, qualitative transition.
FireMatch understanding: once a line is crossed, nothing is the same.
Flame is not heat itself; it is change understood as irreversibility beyond a threshold.

3. Moisture

Change understood as: softening, decay, reabsorption, recurrence.
FireMatch understanding: change is not progress, but repetition and oscillation.
Moisture is not water; it is change understood as reversibility, cycles, and return.

4. Resin

Change understood as: sealing, healing, slow solidification.
FireMatch understanding: the world attempts to repair itself after damage.
Resin is not a substance; it is change understood as self-repair and gradual stabilization.

5. Fungus

Change understood as: decomposition, infiltration, silent rewriting of structure.
FireMatch understanding: change is not explosive, but continuous replacement.
Fungus does not equal decay itself; it indicates old structures quietly being replaced by new ones.

6. Light

Change understood as: brightness and darkness, moving shadows, cycles, measurable duration.
FireMatch understanding: change becomes intelligible through visibility, distinction, and measurement.
Light does not necessarily force material change, but makes difference perceptible, comparable, and recordable.

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VI. Six Modes of Change — Paradigm Table

To prevent the Six Modes of Change from being mistaken for material categories or symbolic metaphors,
the FireMatch Civilization presents the following comparison table.

Note: the “representatives” below are not material instances,
but the most stable cognitive anchors used when understanding change.

Mode	Change Paradigm	Change Typically Understood As	FireMatch Interpretation
Wood	Structural change paradigm	Load shifts, deformation, fracture, grain displacement	The world changes through holding, failing, and deforming
Flame	Threshold-transition paradigm	Rupture, fixation, irreversibility, qualitative shift	Change is crossing a line after which return is impossible
Moisture	Reversible-cycle paradigm	Softening, decay, reabsorption, recurrence	Change oscillates rather than advances
Resin	Self-repair paradigm	Sealing, healing, slow solidification	The world attempts to mend itself
Fungus	Continuous-rewrite paradigm	Decomposition, infiltration, structural replacement	Old structures are quietly replaced by new ones
Light	Manifestation-and-rhythm paradigm	Brightness, shadow movement, cycles, measurable duration	Change is understood by being seen, distinguished, and measured

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VII. Relationships Among the Six Modes

The Six Modes of Change do not form a sequence,
nor do they constitute a hierarchy or causal chain.

When multiple changes occur simultaneously,
the FireMatch Civilization understands reality through layered combination:
not by forcing a single classification,
but by identifying dominant tendencies and composite patterns.

Interaction among the Six Modes is not formulaic;
it is the juxtaposition of interpretive tendencies.

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VIII. Boundaries of Understanding

The Six Modes of Change cover only changes that the FireMatch can
perceive, compare, and practice against.

When a change cannot be stably captured due to scale
—too fast, too slow, too small, or too vast—
it is typically treated as:

• a change not yet forming a stable understanding; or
• folded into the nearest approximate paradigm.

This does not deny reality;
it honestly describes how understanding becomes possible.

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IX. On the Question of a “Seventh Mode”

The Six Modes of Change remain fixed at six.

When new phenomena resist easy classification,
the FireMatch Civilization tends to:

• check for linguistic misuse or descriptive error;
• determine whether the phenomenon is composite;
• or assign it to the closest paradigm.

Difficulty of explanation alone
is not grounds for creating a new mode.

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X. Relationship to Higher Cultural Abstractions

The Six Modes of Change describe how change is understood.

As civilization develops, these understandings may be abstracted into:

• cultural concepts;
• symbolic systems;
• narrative and directional meanings.

Such abstractions do not alter the Six Modes themselves;
they interpret and re-express them.

For higher-level form paradigms and symbolic structures,
refer to the Eight Form Pillars Archive Entries
(e.g., FM-ARCHIVE-0005).

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XI. Closing

The Six Modes of Change do not attempt to provide a final answer about the world.

They provide a shareable way of understanding:

when change occurs,
the FireMatch Civilization knows
which kind of change it believes it is encountering—
and can therefore record it, transmit it, and continue to practice within it.

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— FireMatch Studio
Official Public Archive Entry