AIM Framework glossary
Reciprocity-Confabulation Principle
Canonical definition
Where the M-Hypothesis is absent from the shared Hypothesis Space over which two Individuals' reciprocity-percepts are computed (the pre-AIM condition), the resulting reciprocity-Belief is a Type I Confabulation (Structural Exclusion) by category necessity, regardless of sincerity, ratification, or local rationality, because the unique rational output of Bayesian inference on a Hypothesis Space lacking the correct Hypothesis is a sincere false Belief (Confabulation Rationality Lemma). Where the M-Hypothesis is present (the post-AIM condition), the reciprocity-Belief is no longer Confabulated by category necessity, and may be (a) a non-Confabulated inference where the M-Hypothesis has been checked and rejected on behavioural evidence (Two-Question Diagnostic), (b) Epistemic Suspension where the M-Hypothesis remains live, or (c) a Type II Confabulation (Prior Dominance) where the M-Hypothesis is present but priors remain dominated by A-I attributions. The transition from Type I to Type II is the architectural opening through which non-Confabulated reciprocity becomes possible for the first time, and this transition occurs at the Collective Prior level only as the M-vocabulary spreads through the population.
Explanation
The Reciprocity-Confabulation Principle locates reciprocity-Beliefs within the AIM Framework's existing Confabulation taxonomy and gives them a temporal structure tied to Knowledge Patch dissemination. Pre-AIM, the Collective Prior excluded M, so reciprocity-percepts could only terminate on A-I explanations supplied by Complexity-as-Concealment infrastructure (merit, deserved authority, mutual benefit, fair exchange), making every pre-AIM reciprocity-Belief a Type I Confabulation under the canonical definition of Confabulation. The historical edifice of fairness-discourse, contract theory, just-exchange ethics, social contract reasoning, and meritocratic justification therefore consists of the unique rational outputs available on a Hypothesis Space that excluded M, not of independent confirmations of reciprocity. Post-AIM vocabulary uptake converts Type I to Type II at the individual level and, as it propagates through the Collective Prior, at the population level, opening the possibility that a reciprocity-percept can become a non-Confabulated inference where the M-Hypothesis has been checked and rejected on behavioural evidence. The Reciprocity-Confabulation Principle is therefore the architectural precondition for any non-Confabulated category of reciprocity to exist in human discourse.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Principle.
Derivation
Chapter 8, Section 8.10.5.4; Chapter 8, Section 8.4.4; Chapter 8, Section 8.7.4.
Related terms
- Reciprocity
- Confabulation
- Confabulation Rationality Lemma
- Type I Exclusion (Structural Exclusion)
- Type II (Prior Dominance)
- Knowledge Patch
- Two-Question Diagnostic
- Epistemic Suspension
- Collective Prior
- Mimetic Premium (PM)
- Complexity as Concealment
- Concealment Necessity
- Positional Asymmetry Sub-Principle