discovery

Type: kb/types/tag-readme.md · Status: current

A third learning operation, distinct from both constraining and distillation: positing a new general concept and simultaneously recognizing existing particulars as instances of it. Discovery produces theories — the highest-reach items accumulation can store. A child of learning-theory.

The operation

• discovery is seeing the particular as an instance of the general — the dual structure (posit the general, recognize the particular); three depths from shared feature to generative model; the hard problem is recognition, not linking
• automated synthesis is missing good oracles — why discovery resists automation: no cheap verifier for whether a posited generalization is good
• known-target discovery benchmarks show reachability, not discovery — benchmark critique: recovering a planted generalization measures search, not the open-ended act

Reach — what discovery produces

• first-principles reasoning selects for explanatory reach — Deutsch's adaptive-vs-explanatory distinction: explanatory knowledge transfers because it captures why, not just what works
• brainstorming: how reach informs KB design — working notes applying the reach concept to KB design decisions

Conditions for discovery

• short composable notes maximize combinatorial discovery — the artifact-shape argument: small claims compose into more candidate generalizations
• information value is observer-relative — the gap discovery (and distillation) bridge: structure exists but is inaccessible to the bounded observer until transformed
• minimum viable vocabulary — naming as the discovery lever: the vocabulary that most reduces extraction cost for an observer entering a domain