Zetopoiesis: From Seeking Through Representational Absence to Conceptual Genesis
Description
Zetopoiesis is introduced as a research architecture reconstructed from a longitudinal history of inquiry that began in lived reality rather than within a preselected disciplinary or methodological programme.
The inquiry begins when a phenomenon is encountered but not understood. The investigator then searches for an explanation without knowing in advance which discipline, terminology, or conceptual framework contains it. The search moves across fields according to explanatory relevance, acquiring vocabulary and established frameworks along the way. Explanations can be provisionally adopted when they appear to account for the observed phenomenon and reopened when subsequent observation exposes their insufficiency.
The defining transition occurs later. Sustained answer-seeking can reveal that the representation required to explain the accumulated phenomenon cannot be retrieved from the knowledge record being searched. At that point, the epistemic problem changes: the task is no longer solely to locate an existing explanation, because the required representational structure has itself become part of the problem. Conceptual construction therefore becomes necessary.
Zetopoiesis names this temporal and generative configuration:
encounter → not-understanding → sustained answer-seeking → rhizomatic inquiry → provisional settlement → reopening → accumulated non-resolution → recognition of representational absence → conceptual construction → recursive return
The paper positions this architecture in relation to phenomenon-driven inquiry, Deweyan inquiry, zetetic inquiry, naturalistic and ethological observation, rhizomatic inquiry, methodological bricolage, grounded theory, analytic induction, abduction, retroduction, and Popperian falsification.
The contribution claimed here is architectural and temporal. The individual operations involved are established within the literature; Zetopoiesis names their particular organization around sustained answer-seeking, provisional explanatory settlement, reopening, recognition of representational absence, and the subsequent necessity of conceptual production.
The paper also examines human–AI interaction as a methodological event. Repeated interaction with a language model exposed a specific response pattern in which unfamiliar conceptual structures were repeatedly routed into familiar conceptual branches. The paper terms this interaction-level pattern arborescent re-representation and distinguishes it from claims about the internal mechanisms of language models.
Zetopoiesis is presented as a conceptual-methodological research architecture reconstructed from the author's longitudinal research record. Further comparative research can examine its transferability across investigators, domains, and research settings.