---
slug: window_of_opportunity_crossing
name: Window-of-Opportunity Crossing
one_liner: "Two monotonic curves move oppositely over time, and their crossing opens (or fails to open) a bounded window in which action is both sufficiently informed and still feasible."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, epistemic, cognitive]
origin_domain: technology_studies
alternate_origin_domains: [medicine, conservation_biology, decision_theory]
aliases: [informed_feasible_window, crossing_curves_window, act_before_it_locks, knowledge_vs_leverage_tradeoff, timing_window]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `collingridge_dilemma` (lift: strip the technology-governance frame and the specific information-vs-control curve identities, generalizing to any pair of oppositely-moving monotonic curves whose crossing defines an informed-and-feasible action window). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B candidate (sonnet coinage — genus label not an established term). STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "COINAGE + OVERLAP RISK: 'window-of-opportunity crossing' is a descriptive coinage; the abstracted crossing-curves structure risks overlapping with any existing trade-off-curve, tipping-point, or timing/temporal-window prime. Verify the load-bearing content is the CROSSING (rising-vs-falling suitability) and not just a generic trade-off or a threshold crossing."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `collingridge_dilemma` (the input) and any trade-off-curve / tipping-point / temporal-window / point-of-no-return prime; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers the input AND the treatment-window / conservation-window siblings) and that opposed-monotonic-curve crossing is the distinguishing structure; draw a subsumption edge collingridge_dilemma→candidate + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — two quantities that both change monotonically over time in opposite directions (one prerequisite for good action rising, another falling), such that their relative timing determines whether there is any interval in which both are simultaneously adequate — is a clean, content-free temporal-geometry relation. It presupposes only two monotonic curves and a joint-adequacy condition, so it lifts cleanly off technology governance into medicine (diagnostic certainty rising while treatability falls) and conservation (detectability rising while reversibility falls). It scores above its framed input `collingridge_dilemma` because the lift discards the specific information-vs-control identities and the governance context, keeping only the crossing-curves skeleton. Held at 4 rather than 5 because the "favorable action" framing carries a mild goal-directed connotation that must be supplied by the reader.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: collingridge_dilemma
  similarity: 0.67
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.31
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.8, evaluative_weight: 0.15, institutional_origin: 0.2, human_practice_bound: 0.3, import_vs_recognize: 0.3}
  rationale: 'The candidate is a bare temporal-geometry structure: two oppositely-moving monotonic curves whose crossing bounds a joint-adequacy window. Its vocabulary (curve, crossing, window, feasibility, timing) travels across technology, medicine, and ecology; it carries little evaluative content and is recognized as a structural pattern rather than imported as a doctrine. It reads structural, cleaner than its governance-framed input.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Window-of-Opportunity Crossing

## Core Idea

Window-of-opportunity crossing is the structure in which *two monotonic quantities move oppositely over time — one prerequisite for good action rising, another falling — so that their crossing defines a bounded interval, possibly empty, in which action is simultaneously well-enough informed and still feasible*. The genus is reached from its input, `collingridge_dilemma`, by stripping the technology-governance frame and the specific identities of the two curves: what remains when you drop "information about consequences rises while ability to change the system falls" is the more general pattern of *any* pair of oppositely-trending suitability curves whose relative timing decides whether a favorable-action window exists at all.

The load-bearing anatomy is threefold. First, *two monotonic curves over time*: one representing a condition that improves with time or exposure (knowledge, certainty, detectability), the other a condition that degrades (feasibility, malleability, reversibility). Second, *opposite trends*: the two move in contrary directions, so the thing that makes action wise arrives on the same clock that removes the ability to act. Third, a *joint-adequacy window* defined by their crossing: action is good only where both curves are simultaneously above threshold, and depending on how the curves are placed that window may be wide, narrow, or empty. The characteristic payoff of recognizing the pattern is *diagnosis of a timing trap*: it explains why waiting for more information can be self-defeating and why the right move is often to reshape one of the curves (buy information earlier, preserve feasibility longer) rather than to optimize timing within fixed curves. The characteristic cost/failure is the *possibly-empty window*: when the curves cross with bad timing there is no interval in which action is both informed and feasible, so any choice is either uninformed-but-feasible (act too early, blind) or informed-but-locked (act too late, powerless) — a genuine dilemma rather than a solvable optimization.

Read structurally, the same crossing recurs across unlike domains. In *medicine*, diagnostic certainty about a disease rises with time while treatability declines, so the treatment window sits between the point where the diagnosis is sure enough and the point where intervention still helps — and aggressive cancers can close that window entirely. In *conservation biology*, a species' decline becomes detectable (rising evidence) only as it approaches irreversibility (falling recoverability), so the conservation window between "we can now see the problem" and "it can no longer be reversed" may be vanishingly small. In *technology governance* proper — the input — knowledge of a technology's consequences rises as the cost of altering its entrenched deployment rises. These are structurally unlike in medium (tumors, populations, infrastructures) yet identical in form: two clocks running opposite ways, and a window that lives or dies on their crossing.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed genus of the input prime `collingridge_dilemma`, by stripping the technology-governance frame and the specific information-vs-control curve identities to reach the general opposed-monotonic-curves crossing that bounds an informed-and-feasible window. Surfaced in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03. It claimed the siblings *disease treatment window between diagnosis-certainty and treatability decline* and *species conservation window between detection and irreversible decline*. Logged as a Tier-B (B-rest) candidate in the op-05 remaining-strata manifest.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: the crossing-curves structure is genuinely more general than the Collingridge dilemma — it captures a whole family of "the thing that makes action wise arrives as the ability to act departs" timing traps, with clean structurally-unlike transfer to medicine and conservation, and it scores well on substrate-independence (~4). The specific *opposite-monotonic* geometry (one curve up, one down, joint adequacy at the crossing) is more than a generic trade-off. The RISKS Kurt should weigh, plainly: (1) **This is a sonnet COINAGE** — "window-of-opportunity crossing" is a built label, not a term of art. (2) **Restatement risk vs. the input** — estimated similarity to `collingridge_dilemma` is high (~0.67); the Collingridge dilemma already IS the two-curves structure in a specific domain, so the candidate's novelty is entirely the lift. The sharp keep/cut question: **does the domain-general crossing warrant its own prime, or should `collingridge_dilemma` be re-scoped as the technology instance of a broader timing-window genus?** (3) **Overlap with trade-off-curve, tipping-point, or point-of-no-return primes** — if the corpus holds a general trade-off-curve, temporal-window, or point-of-no-return prime, the boundary must be drawn on the *crossing of two opposed monotonic curves* specifically, or this is an alias of one of them.

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `collingridge_dilemma` (the input) and against any trade-off-curve, tipping-point, temporal-window, or point-of-no-return prime; the distinguishing test is whether the two-opposed-monotonic-curves crossing is the load-bearing content. If kept, draw a subsumption edge `collingridge_dilemma` → `window_of_opportunity_crossing` (input as the technology-governance species) and sibling edges to the treatment-window and conservation-window exemplars; flag a possible missing-edge to any timing/temporal-window genus. If Kurt judges the lift too thin, prefer re-scoping the input and record a cut. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
