{"id":"specialization-and-irreversibility","title":"When specialization prevents repurposing","regions":["physical-systems","computation"],"question":"When does specialization become irreversible loss of adaptability?","formulation":"An initially less differentiated substrate is proposed to acquire specialized routes. The inability to return after specialization is explicitly recognized as a limitation that could require replacement for another task.","representations":[{"name":"Dedicated specialized structure","affords":"Can simplify a stable task.","loses":"May lose flexibility when the task changes.","epistemic_kind":"reconstruction"},{"name":"Reconfigurable structure","affords":"Can serve later tasks.","loses":"Adds a mechanism and resource cost for resetting or adapting.","epistemic_kind":"reconstruction"}],"tension":"Specialization can be useful precisely because some alternatives are no longer maintained.","challenge":"How much task change can be accommodated before the structure must be replaced?","development":"independent_branch","epistemic_kind":"reconstruction","evidence":["basis-specialization-and-irreversibility"],"next_move":{"text":"Measure performance across a sequence of task shifts and report recovery effort, irrecoverable changes, and replacement cost.","epistemic_kind":"model_proposed"},"open_questions":["When does specialization become irreversible loss of adaptability?","How much task change can be accommodated before the structure must be replaced?"],"formal_status":"open_problem","version":1,"content_hash":"c3b58863252445a002470937174071d557bb731370004e652af585ee8f1ad287"}