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  "slug": "epistemic-disturbance-in-the-graph-model-for-conflict-resolution-state-preservin",
  "title": "Epistemic Disturbance in the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution: State-Preserving Actions, Four-Valued Assessments, and the Distinction between Capability and Intention",
  "authors": [
    "Rowan Brad Quni-Gudzinas"
  ],
  "abstract": "In the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), a decision maker (DM) either moves the conflict to another state or does nothing, and every action that leaves the state unchanged is silently classified as inaction. Yet announcements, exercises of rights, leaks, and selective disclosures leave the physical state unchanged while changing what other DMs believe about which moves are available (capability) and which moves others would want to make (intention). We formalize such state-preserving actions by augmenting each state with the DMs' epistemic states: a physical move changes the physical state, a state-preserving action changes only the epistemic state, and inaction is the absence of any transition. Actions generate evidence through observer-specific interpretation maps evaluated in a four-valued logic separating evidence for and against each move. We prove three structural results: evidence for a move can only enable perceived moves and evidence against can only disable them; two of the four canonical reduction operators discard one kind of evidence entirely; and contradictory assessments are absorbing under monotone accumulation, with $37/64 = 0.578125$ of a three-move observer's epistemic space absorbing. A fully computed four-state model in the style of the 1995 DVD format negotiation shows general metarationality collapsing all four states into one stability class while sequential stability separates them, and a single state-preserving action expanding the sequentially stable set from $3$ to $4$ states.",
  "abstract_markdown": "In the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), a decision maker (DM) either moves the conflict to another state or does nothing, and every action that leaves the state unchanged is silently classified as inaction. Yet announcements, exercises of rights, leaks, and selective disclosures leave the physical state unchanged while changing what other DMs believe about which moves are available (capability) and which moves others would want to make (intention). We formalize such state-preserving actions by augmenting each state with the DMs' epistemic states: a physical move changes the physical state, a state-preserving action changes only the epistemic state, and inaction is the absence of any transition. Actions generate evidence through observer-specific interpretation maps evaluated in a four-valued logic separating evidence for and against each move. We prove three structural results: evidence for a move can only enable perceived moves and evidence against can only disable them; two of the four canonical reduction operators discard one kind of evidence entirely; and contradictory assessments are absorbing under monotone accumulation, with $37/64 = 0.578125$ of a three-move observer's epistemic space absorbing. A fully computed four-state model in the style of the 1995 DVD format negotiation shows general metarationality collapsing all four states into one stability class while sequential stability separates them, and a single state-preserving action expanding the sequentially stable set from $3$ to $4$ states.",
  "date": "2026-10-09",
  "first_published": "2026-10-09",
  "last_revised": "2026-10-09T00:00:00Z",
  "modified": "2026-10-09T00:00:00Z",
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  "url": "https://papers.qnfo.org/papers/epistemic-disturbance-in-the-graph-model-for-conflict-resolution-state-preservin",
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        "name": "Rowan Brad Quni-Gudzinas",
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    "titles": [
      {
        "title": "Epistemic Disturbance in the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution: State-Preserving Actions, Four-Valued Assessments, and the Distinction between Capability and Intention"
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        "description": "In the graph model for conflict resolution (GMCR), a decision maker (DM) either moves the conflict to another state or does nothing, and every action that leaves the state unchanged is silently classified as inaction. Yet announcements, exercises of rights, leaks, and selective disclosures leave the physical state unchanged while changing what other DMs believe about which moves are available (capability) and which moves others would want to make (intention). We formalize such state-preserving actions by augmenting each state with the DMs' epistemic states: a physical move changes the physical state, a state-preserving action changes only the epistemic state, and inaction is the absence of any transition. Actions generate evidence through observer-specific interpretation maps evaluated in a four-valued logic separating evidence for and against each move. We prove three structural results: evidence for a move can only enable perceived moves and evidence against can only disable them; two of the four canonical reduction operators discard one kind of evidence entirely; and contradictory assessments are absorbing under monotone accumulation, with $37/64 = 0.578125$ of a three-move observer's epistemic space absorbing. A fully computed four-state model in the style of the 1995 DVD format negotiation shows general metarationality collapsing all four states into one stability class while sequential stability separates them, and a single state-preserving action expanding the sequentially stable set from $3$ to $4$ states.",
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