ROLLBACK STATE UNCERTAINTY
Undoing it requires knowing what it was, and that is the part that was lost.
01 DEFINITION
Condition in which returning to a previous state requires an account of that state which the system kept only well enough to run forward, so what comes back is a reconstruction rather than a return.
02 CONDITIONS
UNCERTAINTY
UNRECORDED
The prior state was not held in a form that supports returning to it.
TIME PRESSURE
MODERATE
There is room to reconstruct and not room to verify the reconstruction.
ERROR ASYMMETRY
ASYMMETRIC
Returning to the wrong prior state and refusing to return cost differently.
OPERATOR STATE
SUPERVISORY
The person is deciding about a reversal rather than performing it.
03 WHERE IT APPEARS
FINANCEReversing a batch requires the prior position, recorded for continuity rather than for reversal.
MEDICALWithdrawing an intervention requires the state before it, held only as far as running forward required.
MANUFACTURINGReturning a process to a prior setpoint needs a record of that setpoint nobody kept for that purpose.
LOGISTICSUndoing an allocation requires the arrangement before it, which was overwritten as it moved.
PUBLIC SERVICEReversing a determination needs the record as it stood, and the record kept only its current form.
AI EXP.Undoing an automated change requires the state it replaced, retained only as long as it was current.
04 WHERE THIS IS SURFACING
This surfaces wherever systems built to move forward are asked to move back. The record that would support reversal was written for continuity, and the difference only appears when reversal is needed.
The question it keeps returning to is how much of the past a working system is obliged to carry — keeping enough to go back is paid continuously against an event that may never come, and keeping less makes going back a matter of inference.