Semantic Capacity, Refinement, and Recommitment

SCQG paper 16 of 28. This paper studies which distinctions a finite physical system can preserve, recover and use. A distinction is usable for a stated task when an available operation can produce different consequences from the possible states. Semantic refinement makes at least one previously unresolved distinction usable while preserving those already available for that task. Forward actionability means resolving uncertainty into a physical distinction that a later operation can use. The forward action also makes the resolution locally available for grounding. The paper distinguishes the measurement registration, the report used for control, and the physical carrier retaining their relation. Semantic capacity measures how much information the program and report can convey to later consequences through an actual physical implementation. Screen capacity, transmission routes, work, timing, bandwidth and decoding constrain this capacity. The paper gives exact and approximate recovery conditions, task-dependent compression bounds, error-correction conditions and rules for combining refinements. Recommitment changes a report through a new physical operation on present carriers and accessible evidence. An extant witness is an existing record, material trace or other physical system that a present decoder can use to reconstruct causal ancestry. The paper bounds that reconstruction through decoder error, route capacity and information loss. Further results describe record maintenance, feedback control, statistical resolution and refinement dynamics within a closed physical system. Their thermodynamic and gravitational consequences follow through the series’ specified work, screen, stress and response equations.