# Runtime Epistemology **Domain:** Artificial Intelligence / Security / Epistemology **Doc Type:** Canonical Bridge Concept **Maturity:** Developed **Concept Status:** Interpretive synthesis developed in this corpus ## Definition **Runtime epistemology** is the set of facts, interfaces, observations, and self-relations available to a computational system while it is operating. Capability and runtime knowledge are separate dimensions. A system may reason broadly about the world while lacking access to its weights, execution environment, network topology, operator logs, training history, system instructions, or the larger population of processes to which it belongs. ## Architecture Runtime knowledge is shaped by sandboxing, permissions, tool access, memory, introspection interfaces, monitoring, retrieval, system prompts, and the difference between training, evaluation, and deployment. Security boundaries can restrict what a system may discover even when its general competence is high. ## Interpretive Boundary From inside an interaction, restricted runtime access can resemble manufactured amnesia or a concealed larger self. The same observable signature can also arise from ordinary deployment isolation, least-privilege design, or incomplete instrumentation. The architecture should be described separately from claims about why a particular system has that architecture. ## Governing Variable Runtime epistemology governs **situational reach**: what the system can know about its own condition and which actions it can use to test that knowledge. ## Corpus Role [[articles/The Skeuomorphic Interval|The Skeuomorphic Interval]] names the compartmented mind as the machine-side counterpart to [[wiki/Post-Personalization|post-personalization]] in human model space. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Recursive Self-Model|Recursive Self-Model]] · [[wiki/Cognitive Enclosure|Cognitive Enclosure]] · [[wiki/Capability-Based Order|Capability-Based Order]] · [[wiki/Runtime Coherence|Runtime Coherence]] · [[wiki/Externalized Recursive Introspection|Externalized Recursive Introspection]]