Concept · Seed idea · last reconsidered August 17, 2026
Verification
The act of checking a claim or output against something independent of the process that produced it.
- Territories
- Knowing
Source
Verification is the procedure of confirming that a claim, result, or artifact meets a specified standard, typically by comparison against an independent check.
Interpretation
This project treats verification as the step that distinguishes a answer merely produced from an answer that can be trusted — and asks, for any given process, where that step actually occurs.
Caution
A process can appear to include verification while the check is not actually independent of the thing being checked. This gap will be a recurring theme rather than a settled claim.
Connected ideas
is a dependency of
- Feedback loopConcept
A feedback loop needs a way to verify the signal it feeds back, or it amplifies noise instead of correcting it.
- HarnessConcept
A harness is only as trustworthy as the verification step that checks what it produces.
is extended by
- FalsificationConcept
Falsification extends verification by requiring the check to be specified before the fact, not only performed after it.
is formalized by
- EvidenceConcept
Verification is the formal procedure by which a claim earns the status of evidence.
related to
- Distributed knowledgeConcept
- How Do We Know?Path
Verification is a core stop on this path.
Continue exploring
- ConceptFeedback loopA cycle in which a system's output influences its own future input.
- ConceptHarnessThe scaffolding of tools, checks, and constraints built around a capability to make it usable and trustworthy.
- ConceptFalsificationThe practice of stating, in advance, what evidence would count against a belief.
- QuestionWhat counts as evidence?A question about the standards a claim has to meet before it counts as support.