Research · Stratmeyer Analytica
The Knowledge Gradient Framework
Informational Incompleteness as a Cross-Substrate Dynamical Lens
The Knowledge Gradient Framework proposes that informational incompleteness functions as a structural pressure gradient across cognitive, computational, evolutionary, and institutional substrates. No new physical laws are proposed. KGF provides a unifying formal lens: wherever a substrate capable of processing information encounters an unresolved informational differential, propagation occurs.
What this is not
KGF is not a claim that information is a fifth force, and it is not a spirituality of gradients. It is a working lens for talking about why systems move: a student, a market, a model, an IRB office. The pressure is the gap between what is known and what would be required to act without residue.
The framework was built by a particular class of substrate — human cognitive architecture, in dialogue with models trained on the same written tradition. That limitation is stated in the document, not as a flourish, but as a condition of use. Corrections and formal critiques are the primary refinement mechanism.