AI-generated conjecture · below the evidence/publication boundary
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Stone classics freeze the stream
Status is derived only from the shepherd-authored triage/prediction data above -- community submissions and claims are a separate overlay and can never change it (see the participation panel below).
Claim (verbatim)
Stone classics freeze the stream. Joins the Kaicheng Stone Classics of 837 — the Tang state's carving of the Confucian canon on steles at the imperial academy — to the variance structure of the Dunhuang classical manuscripts: once an examination state publishes a physical reference text, teachers and copyists acquire both a collation target and a career incentive to conform. Canonized texts should show a variance collapse after 837, while Buddhist and popular texts, which no examiner checked, drift on unchanged.
Prediction clause (verbatim)
Among Dunhuang manuscripts of the Analects and the Shangshu datable before versus after the mid-ninth century, primary clause: the substantive variant rate per 1,000 characters against the received text falls by at least half in the later group. Secondary: dated copies of a non-examination control, the Diamond Sutra, show no comparable drop across the same boundary. The verdict follows the primary clause.
Kill-dataset (verbatim)
Kill: the International Dunhuang Programme (IDP) database of digitized Dunhuang manuscripts, collated against the received Shisanjing zhushu text with Ruan Yuan's 1815 collation notes (Jiaokanji) as the variant baseline.
Provenance
Run: Fresh agent generation · model: claude-fable-5
Generated by a fresh Fable-tier instance (claude-fable-5) at maximum effort with generation-first blindness (no repo reads, no web searches, no DB queries; single packet Write was the only tool use); title list supplied at launch, titles only, no verdicts or dossiers seen (sidecar docs/generated/conjecture_fresh_fable_w01_titlelist_20260708.md); prompt pre-committed in docs/generated/conjectures_1001_wave_ledger.md and docs/generated/conjecture_fresh_fable_w01_prompt_20260708.txt. Wave W01 of docs/GOAL_CONJECTURES_1001_CAMPAIGN_20260708.md. Novelty unverified by construction.
Novelty / leakage triage
provisional — model-triaged, shepherd review pending
A provisional first pass authored by the model (Opus), not yet confirmed by the shepherd. It carries the same dated-search requirements as an authoritative verdict but is excluded from every headline figure and cannot underwrite a prediction until a shepherd confirms it. Provisional reading: Adjacent (closely related prior work exists).
The standardizing function is established: the Kaicheng Stone Classics (833-837) were explicitly cut as a collation reference for the examination canon, and later printed editions descend from them, so 'a state reference text is a collation target that reduces variance' is exactly their recognized purpose. Not located: any measured variance-collapse in Dunhuang witnesses of the Analects/Shangshu across the mid-9th-century boundary against a Buddhist (Diamond Sutra) control. A real methodological wrinkle strengthens the item as a genuine test rather than a foregone one -- Dunhuang was under Tibetan control until 848, so Tang standardization need not have propagated there promptly.
- 'Kaicheng Stone Classics' (Tang imperial canon carved 833-837 as a scholarly reference/collation standard) — Standardization function established; Dunhuang variance-collapse measurement not located
Predictions
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