2.1.6 A layered prior and three levels of repair

2.1.6 A layered prior and three levels of repair

Calling \(\mathbb T_{\mathrm{core}}\) a prior must not turn an empirical hypothesis into an infallible metaphysics. Magnets, remote communication, and virtual objects illustrate why an initial expectation of contact or solidity may require reinterpretation. The declaration is therefore stratified:

1. typing commitments determine which evidence can initially count as an object, magnitude, place, form, agent, or social relation;

2. observational invariants specify distinctions that current probes are permitted to ignore;

3. structural hypotheses propose paths, contact conditions, equivariances, goals, and relations that further interaction may refute; and

4. doctrinal commitments determine which kinds of repair remain expressible inside the current core sketch.

This stratification yields three levels of Piagetian change. Assimilation changes the learned presentation while preserving its interpretation of the core sketch. Ordinary accommodation replaces \(M_t:\mathbb T_{\mathrm{core}}\to \mathcal C_t\) by a revised interpretation \(M_{t+1}\) inside the same doctrine. Foundational accommodation changes the doctrine itself:

The last transition is the most consequential because it changes the hypothesis fibration in which subsequent learning occurs.