The overlap is substantial
Conversation history supplied to a model can perform a memory function within that call. It lets the next response refer to an earlier question or correction. Calling it context does not make that contribution superficial. The distinction concerns preservation and availability, not two incompatible kinds of text.
The earlier decision that went missing
Imagine two calls both receiving the fact that a print is intended for a family wall. Only one also receives the earlier agreement to use a smaller print because the frame has already been bought.
The other call might reopen the size decision even though its record remains in the archive. This is an imagined consequence, not a measured result. A general interest in art cannot substitute for the particular point the conversation reached.
Other supplied characteristics may still be available, but that does not tell us how much continuity survived the omission. One missing decision can affect several later judgments. Conversely, present context can include a new observation that has never been durably stored.
Pause here: Is this relevant history preserved, available to the present call, or both—and what would show that it was used?
Preserve and present
The Memory specification separates preservation from admission into a particular operation. The regulator specification describes cumulative interaction meaning presented through newly assembled contexts across model calls.
The documented architecture assigns the model the work of reasoning with the supplied material and the continuity system the work of preserving and selecting the particular history. Context can therefore shape what the next response attends to, while the model's capabilities affect how the material is interpreted.
A long conversation available now does not establish that its contents will reach a later independent call. An extensive archive does not establish that this call received what matters. The same record may serve both functions, one, or neither.
My answer: Context and memory overlap. Preserved history can support later continuity; supplied context lets selected history and present circumstances participate now. Neither storage nor current availability alone guarantees faithful continuation.