Epistemic Maintenance Theory (EMT)

Epistemic Maintenance Theory (EMT) formalizes the post-learning regime in which the validity of mastery claims must be preserved over time under partial observability, representational drift, and irreducible inference uncertainty. Derived from the Unified Mastery Meta-Theory (UMMT), EMT shows that no finite evaluation or intervention can permanently certify mastery and that long-term stewardship operates on belief states constrained by identifiability limits rather than on ground-truth mastery states.