This paper develops an early-stage formulation of the Essence–World Interface Theory, a structural model that explains how cultural value, creative labor, and temporal mediation emerge within contemporary social systems. Rather than treating evaluation as a neutral act of measurement, the framework conceptualizes worth (E), work (W), and time (T) as interdependent processes that co-produce one another through practices of attention, recognition, and institutional projection. Drawing on continental philosophy, media studies, and the sociology of knowledge, the model clarifies why recurrent attempts to "improve"evaluation often reproduce exclusion and symbolic violence: they leave intact the temporal asymmetries and future-oriented pressures that lower the threshold of tolerability at the interface between essence and the present world. The paper formalizes three modal outcomes—breakdown (E > T), valorization (E = 0), and mediated abundance (0 < E < T)—and demonstrates how these dynamics recur across creative and cultural domains. Through case studies of musical dissolution (Hitsujibungaku, YMO, Kururi) and urban memory projects, the analysis shows how bodily endurance (L-time) and institutional projection (I-time) jointly shape the conditions under which essence can be sustained, translated, or commodified. The theory contributes conceptual tools for rethinking cultural production, AI-assisted creativity, and the design of evaluative systems, proposing that more equitable and resilient creative life depends on engineering interfaces that raise thresholds, modulate intensity, and cultivate responsible forms of mediation.
Setsu KONO (Sat,) studied this question.