Open Problems
The Working Discipline requires that unresolved questions be published as open problems rather than papered over. The following questions are genuinely open within the Academy's research.
The Master Sequence Discrepancy
The Academy's corpus contains three distinct sequences describing how attention moves from possibility to creation. They are not yet reconciled. Publishing the discrepancy itself is consistent with the Working Discipline.
Sequence A: The Core Hypothesis
Possibility → Attention → Coupling → Synthesis → Emergence → Creation
Source: README.md. Labelled a research direction. Its vocabulary is generative. Hypothesis
Sequence B: The Central Model
Possibility → Attention → Coupling → Filtering → Recognition → Kairos → Action → Transformation → Authentication → Reconstruction
Source: skills/oracle-of-attention/SKILL.md. Labelled experimental. Its vocabulary is diagnostic. Experimental
Sequence C: The Functional Sequence
Eros → Athena → Attention → Synthesis → Emergence (→ Creation)
Source: research/eros-athena-attention-emergent-creation.md. Explicitly a research hypothesis. Hypothesis
Why this cannot be resolved editorially
The discrepancy needs authorial adjudication:
- Different epistemic statuses. None claims to be settled.
- B's stages are load-bearing. Filtering, Kairos, Transformation, Authentication all have substantial corpus documentation.
- A is the public-facing claim. It sits on the front page as Core Hypothesis.
- Coupling may not mean the same thing. In A, coupling leads to synthesis. In B, coupling is followed by filtering.
Source: drafts/reconciliation/master-sequence.md
Other Open Questions
The ontological status of the Latent Field
The central mechanism rests on the Latent Field, but the corpus never says whether this is a real structure, a structure in the perceiver's model, or a metaphor. Unresolved
The Three Wounds and the Captures
The relation between the Three Wounds (Book 9) and the Captures of Book 10 is undefined. Unresolved
The status of Automedon and Glitchwalking
Both appear in the Academy's index but their canonical status is unresolved. Unresolved
Luck and Coherence
Both appear exactly once in the corpus. No concept addresses them. Their status is underdeveloped. Unresolved
The Proteus Principle and the Proteus Protocol
Two frameworks sharing the same name. The Principle describes reality's nature. The Protocol is a diagnostic practice. Whether the name is apt or confusing is an open question. Unresolved
The Staller and the Captures
Are the Captures examples of the Staller, a subclass, or a separate phenomenon? Unresolved
Misfiled material
Book 11 material appears in attention-coupling.md. Book 12 Configurations appear in filtering-function.md. The publication ledger controls what becomes public. Unresolved