Short-Lived Does Not Mean Insignificant: Time, Admissibility, and Structural Legitimacy in the Paton System (with Plain-English Companion)

This record contains two documents: (1) Main Paper — A formal statement defining duration as an observational artifact rather than a structural property within the Paton System. It establishes that systems are granted legitimacy through admissibility under constraint, not persistence in time. Short-lived and long-lived events pass the same Tier-2 → Tier-3 admissibility gate and therefore carry equal structural legitimacy. Time measures exposure, not significance. (2) Plain-English Companion — A direct, non-technical interpretation of the main paper. It preserves the full logical structure while removing formal terminology, clarifying that “short-lived” refers to limited observational visibility rather than reduced importance. The companion does not introduce new claims. It exists solely to improve accessibility and interpretation.