C.16.Q:1 - Problem frame

FPF repeatedly encounters a predictable precision failure mode around the token quality:

drafts say:

• “this design has quality”
• “the model quality improved”
• “quality matters before formalisation”
• “quality characteristics”
• “quality in QD and NQD”
• “the world model is higher quality”
• “the explanation is high-quality”

…but the intended meaning is actually one of several different evaluative families, for example:

1. Phenomenal character or qualia when the experienced quality itself is the topic of description rather than an externally measured characteristic.
2. Preconceptual fit or felt rightness before stable EntityOfConcern characterization.
3. Latent and distributed fit signals in learned representations, world models, or active inference loops.
4. Explanatory merit of a theory, problem frame, or conjecture.
5. Architectural-description fitness and compression merit of an architecture description or architecture model under a declared viewpoint.
6. Engineering quality families such as reliability, maintainability, security, evolvability.
7. Usefulness and selection value in open-ended search, novelty–quality–diversity, or portfolio selection.
8. Control adequacy of a policy, model, or controller in a closed loop.

The failure modes are recurrent:

• Sense elision. One broad evaluative noun hides several non-equivalent evaluative kinds.
• Bearer confusion. The bearer of the evaluation is unclear: record, publication carrier when the carrier itself is evaluated, episode, model, policy, explanation, candidate, architecture, relation, or action loop.
• Form confusion. A non-metric signal is rewritten as a metric; a bundle is treated as one scalar; an objective is mistaken for a characteristic.
• Substrate confusion. Embodied and preconceptual, latent and distributed, and symbolic-local representations are silently collapsed.
• Plane confusion. Quality of the EntityOfConcern being described, quality of the description, quality of the carrier, and quality of the publication face are silently collapsed across ReferencePlane values and A.7 lanes.
• Bridge illusion. Similar wording across traditions is mistaken for sameness.
• Illegal scalarisation. Composite engineering families or explanatory merit are compressed into one number without an admissible scoring method.
• Viewpoint conflict. One stakeholder means architectural attributes, another means usefulness, another means preconceptual fit.