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Contributing to the Program

This repository is the charter: the hard core, the heuristics, the open problems, and the confrontations scoreboard. Contributions here touch what the program commits to, so the bar is honesty about register, not enthusiasm.

Org-wide rules (what helps, what does not, house style) are in the organization CONTRIBUTING. This file covers the two procedures the Program owns.

Propose or attack an open problem

The problems live in problems/, one file each, indexed in INDEX.md, across five axes (geometry, selection, formalization, epistemic, experimental).

  • Attack an existing problem: a partial result, a constraint, or a refuted route. A refuted route is not a failure to hide; it is a theorem about the territory and it gets listed as one. Open an issue or a pull request against the relevant problem file.
  • Propose a new problem: state it so progress on it is recognisable. Say what would count as a solution and what would count as a dead end. A problem no result could settle does not belong on the list.

The hard core itself (one sentence) does not move. Everything in the protective belt can be revised or falsified; if you think the core is wrong, that is a challenge to the whole program, and the place for it is an issue stating the counterexample, not an edit.

Challenge a frozen prediction

The scoreboard is CONFRONTATIONS.md: named predictions, dated, against scheduled experimental data. A frozen prediction stands or falls as stated.

  • A prediction that the data has falsified: report it. A falsified prediction is recorded as falsified, in place. That is the scoreboard working, not a result to bury.
  • A prediction you believe was edited after the relevant data arrived: report it with the commit history. Every register move (a statement changing shelf from proven, computed, conjectured, or falsifiable-bet) is a dated event, by rule. If one is not logged, that is a bug in our discipline and we want to know.

What you cannot do is ask for a frozen prediction to be quietly revised to match new data. That is the one move the negative heuristic forbids absolutely.

A note on registers

Every claim in the program sits on exactly one shelf: proven (machine-checked), computed, conjectured, or falsifiable-bet. A contribution that moves a claim between shelves must say so explicitly. Promoting a conjecture to "proven" without a proof, or a bet to a result, is the failure this rule exists to prevent.

GIFT is the founding framework of the Arithmon program. Program: arithmon.com · github.com/arithmon