# Conceptual dependencies and inference gaps

20 September 2026. Analysis of the expanded Notebook graph.

The graph contains 99 nodes, 73 claims, 24 cited works/records and 235 typed relationships. The prerequisite subgraph is acyclic. Ecological influence edges intentionally contain a feedback loop; those edges are not proof dependencies.

## Main dependency chains

- Physical resource budgets → travel costs → net-energy comparison → an explicit reproductive relationship → heritable selection response.
- Fitness representation → probability over problems → permutation assumptions + matched comparison → NFL equality.
- Baseline and target → weak search-for-search inequality → extra uniform-simplex premise → strict tail; applying that tail to ecology needs a separate measure-transfer premise.
- Interaction protocol + evaluation endpoint → coevolutionary result; champion language alone does not determine applicability.

## Structural bridges

| Concept | Downstream prerequisites reached |
|---|---:|
| Fitness concerns reproductive contribution in context | 31 |
| A fitness landscape is a model of a relation | 20 |
| Comparisons need matched endpoints and budgets | 18 |
| An ensemble requires a probability law | 13 |
| Organisms face material and energetic constraints | 8 |
| Heritable variation enables an evolutionary response | 7 |
| A home and dispersed resources create a routing problem | 7 |
| Energy is a conditional proxy for fitness | 7 |
| Active information is relative to a baseline | 7 |
| Physical costs can define the payoff map | 6 |

Reachability is structural importance for this editorial dependency graph, not truth, novelty, evidence strength or measured pedagogical success.

## Missing inference bridges

- A measured or justified life-history link from route energy to reproductive contribution.
- Evidence of heritable variation and intergenerational response, beyond learned route improvement.
- A justified relationship between the physical generator measure and uniform-simplex volume.
- An operational coordinated-complexity endpoint and a mechanism reaching it.
- Additional causal evidence to identify origin beyond a performance statistic.

## Source findings that change the narrative

The original Wolpert–Macready paper explicitly discusses a biologically framed survival-design exception. Its scope must remain distinct from a demonstrated unguided evolutionary mechanism. Ross’s computational meta-search and the uniform-simplex search-for-search analysis are separate constructions. Theobald’s information note contains a verified false inequality and is included as an audit target, not as proof of universal information gain.

10 records retain inherited Notebook review status rather than pretending that every original page was freshly rechecked. Claims without a resolved source record: none. New Library claims have explicit printed-page/PDF anchors. Source availability and publication status are part of the evidence record.

The scrollytell orders the core chain for a reader, while the graph retains parallel branches and qualifications. That sequence is editorially justified, not experimentally validated instruction.