Knowledge as Co-Created Reality Through Engineered Conflict

Jaba Tkemaladze

doi:10.20944/preprints202601.1537.v1

Submitted:

19 January 2026

Posted:

21 January 2026

You are already at the latest version

Abstract

The classical scientific paradigm, centered on the ideal of a passive observer discovering pre-existing facts, is fundamentally challenged by insights from quantum mechanics and complex systems, where measurement is inherently interventional (Heisenberg, 1927; Barad, 2007). We propose the Ze System framework, a radical epistemological shift that redefines scientific inquiry as the active engineering of predictive conflicts to provoke latent reality into manifesting observable phenomena. The framework posits that a substantial portion of reality exists not as localized facts but as a high-entropy "wave" state of unactualized potentialities. By deploying competing, precise predictive models (e.g., P1 and P2 and applying a minimal, targeted intervention—the Ze probe (π)—this methodology forces a system into a crisis of choice. This forced localization is an entropic transaction: it expends energy, increases disorder, and irrevocably annihilates alternative potentials. Crucially, truth is not found in a model's confirmation but is forged in the structured, interpretable residual error (ϵL) that persists when a "greedy" model, equipped with a "cheating lever" to shape its own data, encounters an unyielding latent structure (L) (Tkemaladze, 2026). This paper details the ontological, methodological, and ethical foundations of this second-order science, framing Ze systems as entropy engines that strategically invest disorder to purchase certainty, thereby recasting the scientist's role from detached observer to accountable architect of co-created facts.

Keywords:

active measurement

;

epistemological provocation

;

entropy

;

latent reality

;

predictive conflict

;

Ze system

Subject:

Physical Sciences - Quantum Science and Technology

Introduction: From Cartography to Interrogation

For centuries, the scientific method has been predicated on the model of the neutral observer mapping a stable, independent reality. This paradigm is catastrophically insufficient for probing the latent domain—the realm of potentialities, distributed correlations, and statistical shadows that precede classical manifestation (Zurek, 2003). Quantum mechanics long ago demonstrated that measurement disturbs (Heisenberg, 1927), but the Ze framework radicalizes this, asserting that measurement is a teleological disturbance, a deliberate provocation (Aharonov, Albert, & Vaidman, 1988). The Ze System, therefore, engineers a new class of active instruments whose primary function is not observation but the creation of experimental dilemmas—situations of maximal predictive conflict designed to force latent structures to betray themselves by localizing from wave-like superpositions into particle-like observable states (Tekmaladze, 2026). This shift from a cartographic to an interrogative science raises a central thermodynamic question: what is the cost of forcing reality to declare its hand? We argue that Ze systems function as entropy engines, strategically generating and managing disorder to purchase localized truth.

Ontological Foundation: Reality as a Latent Field

The Ze framework is grounded in a quantum-informed ontology, extending the principles of superposition and latency beyond the microscopic scale. It asserts that the classical world of localized objects is the "incidental precipitate" of a vaster latent field, formally described by wave functions (Ψ) representing superpositions of possible states until interaction forces a collapse (Schrödinger, 1926). This latency is ubiquitous: in neuroscience, a memory is a distributed synaptic potential awaiting reactivation (Josselyn & Tonegawa, 2020); in biology, pre-cancerous states exist as coherent molecular fluctuations long before pathology (Hanahan & Weinberg, 2011). These are not fixed things but constrained shapes within high-dimensional probability distributions. The universe, in this view, is a domain of unmanifested possibilities, and the role of the scientific instrument is to interact as an editor, applying pressure to compel a specific narrative.

Methodology: The Mechanics of Provocative Measurement

The operational core of the Ze methodology is the engineering and resolution of predictive conflict, a process formalized in a rigorous protocol:

Construction of Divergent Models: Two or more precise, quantitative predictive models (P₁(π), P₂(π)) are formulated. P₁ represents the null expectation based on the standard model (S), while P₂ incorporates a hypothesized latent structure (H) as a physical constraint. Their predictions for a specific observable must diverge beyond a defined confidence interval.
Application of the Ze Probe: The probe π is derived as the material instantiation of the predictive question. It is a minimal, precisely calibrated perturbation (e.g., a resonant electromagnetic field, a sub-critical metabolic challenge) engineered to be maximally sensitive to the differential imposed by H (Engel et al., 2007; Soto, 2003).
Detection of Forced Localization: The system's response is monitored for an outcome that cannot be explained as noise within P₁ and aligns with the violation pattern characteristic of the conflict between P₁ and P₂.

This logic finds its canonical expression in the quantum double-slit experiment with a "which-path" detector, where the detector (π) forces the wave-function to collapse, localizing the photon (Grangier, Roger, & Aspect, 1986). The primary event is not the detected position but the forced choice necessitated by the mutually exclusive predictive frameworks.

Ze Systems as Entropy Engines: The Thermodynamics of Knowledge

The act of forced localization is a thermodynamic transaction, most clearly articulated through the principle of "Honest Cheating." Here, a predictive model (M) is endowed with a "cheating lever"—a minimal actuator allowing it to tweak system parameters to minimize its own prediction error, entering a self-fulfilling loop.

Generating Entropy: This active sculpting expends energy to alter states, increasing disorder as the model attempts to impose its order. This aligns with the Landauer principle, which establishes that erasing a bit of information (collapsing possibilities) dissipates a minimum of k_BTln⁡(2) energy as heat, increasing environmental entropy (Landauer, 1961).
Truth from Residual Entropy: If no deep latent structure exists, the cheating model succeeds, reshaping reality into a trivial reflection of itself. However, if a true latent structure (L) exists—a homeostatic set-point, a topological constraint—it resists. The cheating actions meet "friction," producing a persistent, structured residual error (ϵ_L) that M cannot eliminate. This residual is the signal; truth is localized in the pattern of this informative failure (Tkemaladze, 2026).

This framework re-contextualizes the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as a "Principle of Necessary Conflict": forcing a definite position requires an intervention whose entropic cost is the complete disruption of any predictable momentum trajectory.

Implications and Case Studies

Recognizing science as a co-creative, entropic process has profound implications across disciplines.

Precision Oncology: A targeted kinase inhibitor is a materialized cheating model (M). Its initial success in forcing tumor remission is a successful "cheat." The emergence of drug-resistant subclones is not merely a clinical failure but the generation of ϵ_L, revealing the tumor's latent heterogeneity and guiding next-generation therapy (Druker, 2008).
Neuroscience: The placebo response is an endogenous cheating loop. Individual variability in this response, linked to genetic polymorphisms, constitutes the detectable ϵL, revealing latent biological constraints on the mind-body predictive system (Hall, Loscalzo, & Kaptchuk, 2015).
Cognitive Science: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can be viewed as a collaborative Ze system, where behavioral experiments act as cheating levers against maladaptive predictive models. The core schemas that resist change are the latent structures (L) localized by their persistent residual (ϵ_L) (Beck, 2011).
Machine Learning: Overfitting is a degenerate form of a greedy model's success, where the model "cheats" perfectly on training data. Its failure to generalize is the catastrophic emergence of ϵ_L, revealing that its "truth" was an artifact of its sculpting power over a limited domain (Mehrabi et al., 2021).

Ethical Reckoning: The Cost of Co-Creation

The Ze framework dismantles the myth of innocent knowledge. Every co-created fact incurs a three-part entropic debt:

Energetic Price: The thermodynamic cost of forced localization (Landauer, 1961).
Ontological Price: The annihilation of unactualized potential states, a permanent pruning of possible futures.
Historical Price: The irreversible alteration of the system onto a new trajectory.

This demands a new ethical calculus moving from minimizing disturbance to accountable authorship, emphasizing precision of intervention, acknowledgment of lost potentials, stewardship of the newly actualized state, and radical transparency about the co-creative nature of all findings.

Conclusion

The Ze System proposes a paradigm shift from a science of being to a science of becoming. It synthesizes that reality is a domain of latent potential, and what we call facts are the solidified outcomes of irreversible, entropic transactions. Ze systems are the engineered catalysts for these transactions. They strategically invest energy and generate disorder to provoke latent structures into manifesting, purchasing islands of certainty with the currency of entropy. Truth, therefore, is not illuminated but forged in the heat of a deliberately engineered predictive conflict. This casts the scientist not as a passive observer, but as a humble and responsible architect, actively participating in the careful, ethical revelation of the worlds we choose to bring into being.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This research does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the Author.

Consent for publication

The Authors transfer all copyright ownership, in the event the work is published. The undersigned author warrants that the article is original, does not infringe on any copyright or other proprietary right of any third part, is not under consideration by another journal and has not been previously published.

Availability of data and materials

All data and materials generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript. The Authors had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

Competing interests

The Author does not have any known or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence or be perceived to influence their work.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Acknowledgments

None.

Authors' contributions

The Authors performed equally: study concept and design, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting of the manuscript, critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content, statistical analysis, administrative, technical and material support, study supervision.

Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process

The author used ChatGPT to assist with data analysis and manuscript drafting and to improve spelling, grammar and general editing. The authors take full responsibility of the content.

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