Standard proposal · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Human capability as a testable map: foundations, evidence, and limits
Working paper — not peer reviewed
A team can contain knowledgeable people and still fail to coordinate. A person can perform well in one setting and struggle in another. A useful account of human capability therefore needs to distinguish what people know, what they can do, how they usually behave, and what becomes possible through their interaction. The source working paper proposes eight broad categories to organize those questions. This expanded paper asks what would make that proposal scientifically useful. The assessment distinguishes a vocabulary, a classification, a measurement system, a predictive model, and an intervention. Success at one does not establish success at the others. Selected research supports particular individual and team constructs within the populations and tasks studied. It does not validate the eight categories as a mutually exclusive, exhaustive, or naturally periodic system. Several apparent defects already have conventional explanations: a construct can operate at several descriptive levels; different instruments can measure different things under the same name; and individual averages need not account for interaction-dependent group outcomes. An elementary mathematical audit establishes what category membership, factor-model fit, finite coverage checks, aggregation, and repeated observations can and cannot demonstrate. These results are conditional statements, not discoveries about human nature. The paper proposes comparative coding, measurement, prediction, intervention, and transportability studies, with an additional prerequisite for testing literal periodicity. The defensible present use is an explicitly provisional research vocabulary. Whether it improves understanding or decisions over simpler alternatives remains an empirical question.
Evidence synthesis · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Connecting laboratory measurement with computational models of cellular activity
Research note in development
A living cell behaves less like a single switch and more like a busy city of interacting processes. This developing research note asks what instruments and models are needed to simulate and observe human-cell activity outside the body. The review method and evidence-quality checks remain in progress.
Theoretical paper · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Eight testable ideas about how work is represented, organized, and given meaning
Research note in development
A household task, a scientific investigation, and a software change look different but may share structural features. This developing research note presents eight hypotheses about representing and organizing work. Definitions, objections, revision conditions, and the final synthesis remain in progress.
Technical report · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Exploring careful uses of AI for test ideas, maintenance, and quality evidence
Research note in development
Software testing involves imagination as well as repetition. This developing research note asks where AI might help propose tests, maintain them, and explain quality evidence without becoming its own judge. The design remains provisional while its claims are compared with public research and reproducible experiments.
Exploratory note · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Exploring reflection, recognition, and cautious roles for software
Working paper — not peer reviewed
People sometimes recognize change only after a pattern has repeated for a long time. This exploratory note asks whether software could help a person notice those patterns without pretending to diagnose or explain them. It presents speculative models, prompts, and possible measures for further study. The numerical examples are ideas to examine, not verified findings.
Technical report · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A personal hypothesis about private meeting memory, consent, and small tests
Working paper — not peer reviewed
Some people want help remembering meetings but cannot send recordings or transcripts to a cloud service. This paper explores a personal listening notebook that keeps source material under the user's control. It asks who might value the idea, which safeguards it would need, and which small observations should come before larger commitments. The analysis is a provisional design inquiry, not proof of demand or a product forecast.
Technical report · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Evidence, limits, and human control in autonomous software delivery
Working paper — not peer reviewed
Software can continue working while a person is absent, but passing tests cannot prove that it understood the full goal. This paper asks how such a system can make useful progress without claiming more certainty or authority than its evidence supports. It calls that boundary the verification horizon and proposes practical controls around it. The model is a personal engineering inquiry, not proof that autonomous delivery is safe.
Evidence synthesis · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Comparing centralized control with embodied and distributed accounts of mind
Research note in development
The brain is often described either as the body's controller or as one participant in a larger living system. This developing research note compares those pictures across evolution, anatomy, physiology, and behavior. Its evidence method is still being refined, so its conclusions remain provisional.
Historical essay · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
An original historical working essay on work from ancient societies to the digital age
Working paper — not peer reviewed
This historical working essay traces changing ideas and organization of work through ancient societies, industrialization, scientific management, digital coordination, and the search for meaning. The full original essay and its source links are retained with formatting changes and a separate editorial note. It is not peer reviewed; its historical claims and citations remain unverified.
Standard proposal · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Five possible stages for identity and adaptation in reusable components
Research note in development
Software can remember where it came from, what happened recently, and what it learned without being treated as a person. This developing research note proposes five stages for that kind of component identity. Its scenarios are candidate acceptance criteria, not evidence that a system has passed them.
Standard proposal · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A practitioner-oriented candidate model for truth, trust, evidence, and conformance
Research note in development
Software delivery needs room to move and enough guardrails to keep mistakes observable and reversible. This developing research note outlines a candidate model spanning truth, scheduling, trust, evidence, fitness, delivery, and conformance. Most sections remain at outline level and are not a ratified standard.
Standard proposal · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Candidate checks for perception, memory, identity, judgment, and longitudinal behavior
Research note in development
A system that imitates intelligent behavior can appear more capable than it is. This developing research note asks how a cross-disciplinary test program might challenge claims about a cognitive twin. The proposed checks are a research agenda, not proof of consciousness or human equivalence.
Theoretical paper · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A theoretical account of motion, identity, and change without a fixed background
Research note in development
Motion is usually described against space and time as if they were a stage. This developing research note asks whether changing relationships can do more of that explanatory work. Its definitions, formal claims, competing interpretations, and revision conditions require specialist review.
Technical report · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Comparing a composable architecture with established systems practices
Research note in development
A software design can look new while being assembled from familiar ideas. This developing research note compares one composable architecture with microservices, actor systems, domain-driven design, formal methods, autopoiesis, and resilience research. Novelty judgments remain provisional until the comparisons and sources are verified.
Technical report · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A multi-scale simulation idea for molecular, cellular, and population-level study
Research note in development
DNA repair resembles a set of overlapping crews responding to damage at different scales. This developing research note explores how a Python simulation might connect molecular events, cell behavior, and population outcomes in leukemia research. Parameters, reproducibility, citations, and availability claims remain under review.
Evidence synthesis · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Linking bodily signals, prediction, language, concepts, and lived experience
Research note in development
A feeling may involve bodily signals, predictions, concepts, language, and personal history at once. This developing research note compares scientific and philosophical explanations without reducing experience to a single layer. Its source-selection method and review boundaries remain in progress.
Technical report · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A technical inquiry into test ideas, oracles, architecture checks, and maintenance
Research note in development
When AI helps design tests, it can also repeat mistaken assumptions or reward easy measurements. This developing research note examines useful roles, failure modes, and controls for AI-enabled testing. Claims about implemented systems and projected benefits remain unverified until reproducible evidence supports them.
Technical report · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A practical inquiry into workflows, evidence, and AI-enabled test design
Working paper — not peer reviewed
An assembly line is useful only when people can explain what entered it, what changed, and what came out. This paper asks how a generic automation factory could coordinate software work using workflows, clear evidence, and human-controlled release gates. It compares options and failure conditions instead of describing a finished system. AI-enabled test design is treated as one possible addition to established software practices.
Evidence synthesis · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A bounded synthesis of neural signals, evidence standards, and shared concepts
Research note in development
Nerves do not communicate alone; chemical, immune, bodily, and environmental signals also shape what organisms sense and do. This developing research note maps that wider communication network and the evidence used to study it. Search reproducibility and source accounting remain incomplete.
Theoretical paper · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Seven perspectives on the relationship between observers and what they can know
Research note in development
People do not merely collect facts; they choose instruments, categories, language, and standards of proof. This developing research note compares seven ways that observers may shape knowledge without assuming that reality is invented. Several perspectives and the consolidated argument remain unfinished.
Standard proposal · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A candidate translation layer across methods, outcomes, evidence, and software
Working paper — not peer reviewed
Different fields organize work with different words, rules, and measures. This paper asks whether a small shared language could help those methods communicate without erasing their useful differences. It proposes a candidate work model, compares it with established approaches, and sketches one possible software design. The model is open to testing and revision; it is not a standard or a proven universal solution.
Theoretical paper · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Twenty-one testable questions about reality, knowledge, representation, and measurement
Working paper — not peer reviewed
People create symbols, units, models, and experimental practices, but they do not freely choose the world those tools must describe. This paper asks how much mathematics, science, and measurement depend on people. It separates questions about reality, knowledge, and representation through twenty-one testable pairs. The resulting view is provisional: people shape knowledge while remaining constrained by structures they did not create.
Theoretical paper · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A working model of persistence, relationships, and change in software components
Research note in development
A software component can change its state, surroundings, and collaborators while still being treated as the same component. This developing research note explores what that continuity could mean in a composable system. The model is an open question, not a claim about a completed implementation.
Theoretical paper · Complete paper
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Comparing biological, psychological, and narrative continuity
Working paper — not peer reviewed
Bodies change, memories fade, and personal stories are revised, yet people usually experience themselves as continuing through time. This paper compares biological, psychological, and narrative explanations of that continuity. It asks what each explanation treats as essential and what evidence could support or challenge it. The proposed tests form a personal research map instead of reporting completed validation.
Theoretical paper · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A layered argument about persistence, experience, feedback, and computational models
Research note in development
People experience a continuing self even though bodies, memories, and circumstances change. This developing research note asks how identity, time, feedback, and consciousness might fit together across philosophy and computation. Definitions, counterarguments, experiments, and citations remain under review.
Exploratory note · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
An exploratory framework for cognitive load under thread-constrained work
Research note in development
Work can feel harder when attention is split across too many unresolved threads. This developing research note frames questions, competing hypotheses, and candidate measures for that cognitive cost. It is a proposal for study, not a report of an executed experiment.
Standard proposal · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
An early framework for keeping delivery movement and engineering discipline in balance
Research note in development
Delivery speed and technical integrity are often treated as opposing forces, though both are needed to keep software moving. This developing research note explores a two-wheel metaphor for balancing them. Its problem statement, examples, measures, and references require further editorial and evidence review.
Standard proposal · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
A bounded architectural proposal for managing context in composable systems
Research note in development
A language model needs enough context to act usefully, but unlimited memory creates cost, confusion, and privacy risk. This developing research note proposes a bounded component for selecting, carrying, and retiring context. Its interfaces, invariants, competing designs, and adoption consequences remain open to review.
Theoretical paper · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Relationships, boundaries, feedback, and emergence as architectural lenses
Research note in development
Software systems are built, but their interactions can still produce effects that no single part controls. This developing research note explores an ecosystem analogy for architecture through boundaries, exchange, feedback, and emergence. The analogy remains provisional and will be revised where historical or technical evidence does not support it.
Evidence synthesis · In development
Eric C. Mumford · 2024
Exploring how AI might change judgment, roles, workflow, and evidence in software quality
Research note in development
AI may change how tests are written, what quality practitioners examine, and how they justify decisions. This developing research note examines those possible shifts in cognition, roles, workflow, and evidence. Its search strategy and source-selection record are still being reconstructed.