Retaining Interpretive History in Local Models of Permission Understanding during Resource-Sharing Decisions

Abstract

Understanding a permission can depend on an earlier grant, its scope, subsequent use and later revocation. A current answer can leave these differences hidden. This paper develops a local reference model for resource-sharing decisions that separates stipulated permission, a participant's interpretation, recorded evidence and the formation of understanding. A three-state construction tracks one-use and standing grants. A distinguishing-continuation argument establishes its minimal deterministic state requirement within the stated task, while equal recent-history windows expose the limits of fixed-window summaries. Sets of possible states preserve ambiguity about unobserved events. A retrospective quota change provides a further counterexample: a state sufficient under an earlier rule can omit history required by a later rule. A sustained fictional lending-room dossier connects these results to scope clarification, reasons, disagreement and authority. Verified work on predictive state, knowledge tracing and finite-state distinguishability supplies bounded antecedents. The proposed contribution is an interpretable adequacy test for a restricted model of permission understanding; psychological explanation, legitimate rule formation and empirical validation remain open.