The shape of the argument
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A machine can retain an answer without retaining a method. It can possess a method without having evidence to initialize it. It can execute that method correctly while using a record that no longer permits correction. It can improve one part of the computation while making the complete process more expensive. These are not unrelated qualifications. Each is a failure at a particular connection between evidence, representation, and action.
This book follows those connections in order. It begins with the information actually available to a reasoner. It asks what state that information can initialize, which operations the state supports, what must be remembered when further evidence arrives, and how one bounded investigation can acquire what is missing. Only then does it discuss improving the investigation and maintaining commitments across several participants.
The running example is deliberately small. A sensor reports a physical bit under an unknown convention, with a third nuisance bit that never affects the specified task. The example is enlarged only when a chapter explicitly changes its contract. It is not a model of a whole mind. Its purpose is to make hidden information, permitted actions, and each passage between results inspectable.
| Chapter | Question answered | What the next chapter still needs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What does the record determine? | Operations that can be performed on the retained state. |
| 2 | What survives a change of representation? | A record capable of later correction. |
| 3 | What must memory retain? | Decisions and recipients that use that memory. |
| 4 | What can the retained information justify? | An investigation that can actually acquire it. |
| 5 | What fits one executable budget? | A justified way to improve the discovery procedure. |
| 6 | What search work can be removed? | Evidence that remains applicable after a revision. |
| 7 | Which guarantees and gains survive change? | Explicit treatment of other participants and obligations. |
| 8 | What can be maintained together? | A clear boundary between the proved chain and its applications. |
The second admission block joins the signal-model, Bayesian-refinement, and artifact-planning sources at their common probability interface. Chapters 2, 3 and 5 are expanded in place: no whole source manuscript is appended.
There is one notation and one proof sequence. Repeated source arguments appear once. Original source names identify provenance, not new modules assumed to interoperate. The chapter endings explain exactly which output becomes the next chapter's input.