C.36.RP:11.2 - What should remain available before its later use is known?

Adapt: keep a promising method with the means of trying a worthwhile variation, as in §§4.1 and 4.6. The serious alternative is to retain only methods needed by currently specified work. That alternative protects time and attention when continuity of a stable activity is the task. For exploration, it can discard the very operation from which a new question could be developed.

Stanley and Lehman’s 2015 stepping-stone argument supplies this challenge to selecting solely by a known destination. Enhanced POET (2020), §§2–3, supplies a computational construction in which difficulty relative to available agents, novelty and transfer work together. Its experimental environments support that combination under their conditions; they do not determine how a laboratory or ensemble should teach and retain its methods.

With a fixed retention and practice budget, preserving the possibility of variation consumes resources that could support present work. Accept that trade-off where an attainable continuation is worth trying; §4.6 uses C.40 to develop it and C.18/C.19 for the relevant archive and live-pool choices. Retain an earlier variant when continued use, comparison or recovery needs it (§4.3). Reconsider retention when the variation becomes unattainable, its means become too costly, or another arrangement supports the useful continuation with less burden.