Addressing

Definition

Content addressing in UOR maps ring elements to Braille-encoded strings via a bijective encoding. Each Element represents a content-addressable identifier where each byte encodes a chunk of the element value.

The Addressing Bijection

Two identities formalize the round-trip property:

  • AD_1: addresses(glyph(d)) = d — addressing a glyph recovers the datum.
  • AD_2: glyph(ι(addresses(a))) = ι_addr(a) — embeddings commute with addressing.

These are the foundation of content-addressable computation: every datum has a unique address, and every address resolves to a unique datum.

Boolean Homomorphism

A key structural property is that Boolean operations lift to address space while ring-arithmetic operations do not:

  • AA_2: braille(a ⊕ b) = braille(a) ⊕ braille(b) — XOR lifts
  • AA_3: glyph(bnot(x)) = complement(glyph(x)) — complement lifts
  • AA_4: glyph(add(x, y)) ≠ f(glyph(x), glyph(y)) — addition does NOT lift
  • AA_5: Liftable operations are exactly {xor, and, or, bnot}

This means carry-free operations can be performed directly on addresses, while carry-dependent operations (add, sub, mul, neg, succ, pred) require decoding.

Address Metric

Identity AM_2 shows that the address metric d_addr equals the Hamming metric on ring elements: d_addr(glyph(x), glyph(y)) = d_H(x, y). However, AM_3 notes that d_addr does NOT preserve the ring metric d_R in general — the incompatibility metric d_Δ measures this gap (AM_4).

Embedding Coherence

The property addressCoherence certifies that an embedding's addressing diagram commutes: the composition glyph ∘ ι ∘ addresses is well-defined and injective.

Glyph Encoding Example

Consider the value 42 in R_8 (= Z/256Z). Its binary representation is 00101010. The 6-bit chunking scheme splits this into two chunks:

ChunkBitsDecimalEncoding
100101010U+2819 (⠙)
210xxxx32 (padded)U+2840 (⡀)

Each byte encodes a chunk of the element value, producing the Element ⠙⡀. The addressing bijection (AD_1) guarantees that decoding this address recovers the original value 42.

Connection to Canonical Forms

The CanonicalFormResolver produces the unique canonical representation of a ring element. Once the canonical form is computed, the addressing bijection maps it to a content-addressable Element. This two-step process — resolve then address — ensures that semantically equivalent values receive identical addresses. See Canonical Form for the resolution step.