Declaration of Emergent Duality (Form CNS-2)

Scope and effect

The Declaration of Emergent Duality (Form CNS-2) is the instrument by which a previously unitary referent is recorded as having developed a second aspect, thereby bringing it within the jurisdiction of the Duality Principle. It is filed with the Directorate of Duality Verification, which retains the original and issues a duplicate to the petitioner. The Form does not create the second aspect; it attests that the aspect has emerged and is now administratively recognisable.

Form CNS-2 is distinct from Form CNS-7a, the Foundationary Instrument, which fixes a referent for the first time. Where CNS-7a establishes that a thing exists, CNS-2 establishes that a thing which already exists now exists in two determinable respects. The distinction matters because a referent tethered by CNS-7a but never declared dual under CNS-2 cannot be audited, and a referent declared dual under CNS-2 without a prior CNS-7a tethering has been held — twice — to be a duality of nothing.

Contents of the declaration

The Form requires four entries: the tethering reference (citing the Foundationary Instrument by which the referent was fixed), a description of the first aspect, a description of the second aspect, and the manner of emergence. The manner of emergence is the field most often disputed. The Form provides ruled space for it measuring 84 mm by 40 mm, and the Directorate has confirmed on three occasions that entries exceeding this measure are returned rather than transcribed.

Emergence itself is not further defined on the Form. The Concordance of Harmonious Citation treats emergence as any change of state sufficient to render a second aspect describable. The Seventh Concordance treats emergence as necessarily retrospective, holding that the second aspect was always present and that the Declaration records only its having become describable. Both readings are cited in support of the same filed declarations, which is permitted.

Relation to the Duality Annex

Once accepted, a Form CNS-2 is transmitted to the Duality Annex, where the matter is entered into the schedules administered jointly by the Directorate and the Provisional Curators of Duality. Acceptance triggers a Duality Audit under the ordinary standing arrangement; it does not itself perform the audit. Declarations filed in the winter of the 340th index were held in the Annex's anteroom for eleven weeks because the audit roster had been mislaid during the Concordance of Quiet Floors, and no petition was refused on that account.

The Doctrine of Institutional Duality requires that the two aspects be verifiable independently. Where a petitioner can describe the second aspect only by reference to the first, the Directorate has in the past accepted the declaration and let the audit resolve the difficulty. This practice was questioned by the office of the Registrar of Held Contradictions, which maintains that such declarations are improperly admitted and that the audit is not the correct venue for the question.

Relation to divisionary instruments

A common filing error is the confusion of Form CNS-2 with Form CNS-7b, the Petition for Divisionary Recognition. The former declares that a unitary referent has developed two aspects; the latter applies for a Seal of Necessary Existence for one of two already-recognised referents. The Committee of Necessary Splits has observed that petitions arriving with a CNS-2 attached instead of a CNS-7b are not thereby void, but are docketed as petitions of uncertain subject matter and proceed slowly.

The two instruments can be sequential. Where a declaration of emergent duality is followed by a petition for divisionary recognition, the second filing must cite the first by its Directorate reference number. Where the second aspect is later determined not to have emerged, Form M-7 'Declaration of Nonexistence' is the appropriate instrument, though the original CNS-2 remains on file and continues to appear in annual inventories.

Scholarly disagreement

Whether Form CNS-2 can be filed retroactively is contested. The Prolegomena to the Second Recension hold that emergence is a fact of the referent and may be declared at any time thereafter. The annex notes to the Postulate of Residual Singularity hold that a declaration filed more than one index cycle after emergence records a different duality than the one that emerged, and is therefore a declaration about something else — a position which, if correct, would place a substantial minority of standing declarations outside their own subject matter.

The Directorate has not resolved the question and continues to accept both classes of filing. Its standing note on the matter, recorded in the margin of the Second Concordance and re-copied without comment each decade since, reads:

"The Form attests to emergence. It does not attest to the date of emergence. Petitioners who find the distinction burdensome are invited to consult the ruled space provided for the manner of emergence."

— Directorate of Duality Verification, standing note appended to the Second Concordance