{
  "id": "02",
  "slug": "reopening-a-belief",
  "title": "When should a belief reopen?",
  "short_title": "Reopening a belief",
  "question": "When a previously unreliable source recovers, can an agent discover that its old conclusion no longer fits?",
  "summary": "A failed short-horizon study exposed a lockout: avoiding a source also prevented discovering its recovery.",
  "status": "Failed precursor · scoped follow-up pass",
  "access": "Public methods summary · full run archive not published",
  "record": "Source-volatility and reinspection studies, reviewed 16 September 2026",
  "setup": "An isolated source-reliability task changed over time. A short-horizon inquiry policy could stop using a source judged unreliable, then fail to gather the evidence needed to notice its recovery.",
  "intervention": "Extend the reinspection horizon while preserving the failed precursor and comparisons with simpler inspection policies. Ask whether the policy can reopen a conclusion, not whether it can narrate uncertainty.",
  "metric": "A failed gate followed by a narrower repair",
  "bars": [],
  "result": "The precursor failed qualification. The longer-horizon reinspection follow-up was reported to pass its three scoped criteria. The retained failure identifies a design problem: an apparently sensible policy can close its own channel of correction.",
  "limit": "The follow-up does not establish universal inquiry optimality. Simple periodic or uncertainty-based inspection remains a necessary competitor. Passing the chosen conditions is not proof of self-directed curiosity.",
  "next": "In a continuing project, test whether occasional evidence renewal improves decisions enough to justify its cost, without turning every old belief into perpetual rechecking.",
  "public_record_id": "NR-2026-002",
  "reviewed": "2026-09-16",
  "artifact_kind": "Public study summary, not an executable reproduction package",
  "verification": "Internal source/report review; full numerical comparison not independently re-executed for publication",
  "external_replication": "Not established"
}