In plain words: A formal framework lets a discovery system rewrite its own rules and record what carries over versus what is genuinely new, rather than answering questions. Two systems built with it found a protein-flexibility law and a fiber-stiffness model chosen over the usual count-based one.
Abstract · Self-Revising Discovery Systems for Science: A Categorical Framework for Agentic Artificial Intelligence
Scientific discovery is not only answer generation but revision of the representational regime in which evidence, artifacts, operations, and verifiers are typed. We develop a category-theoretic account of agentic discovery for materials science. In a fixed regime b with schema category S_b, the system state is a copresheaf I_t: S_b -> Set, and provenance is the category of elements \int_{S_b} I_t. Fixed-regime operation is an update on such states, endofunctorial only when provenance-preserving refinements are specified and preserved. Discovery is instead a verified regime transition u: S_b -> S_b': old artifacts are preserved, transported by the left Kan extension Lan_u I_t, and compared with the post-transition state to identify residual content beyond functorial transport. This separates retrieval, search, and discovery without subjective novelty. We instantiate the framework in two systems. In Builder/Breaker, a protein-mechanics world model is revised under a Minimum Description Length gate; the accepted law expresses within-chain flexibility as all-mode elastic compliance conditioned by slow collective-mode participation, or mode-conditioned compliance. In CategoryScienceClaw, typed skills, artifacts, open needs, workflow mutation, gates, stress tests, and public discourse become a proof-carrying knowledge-computation graph. A fiber-network example records candidate models, rejected alternatives, an AIC gate, perturbation tests, and an accepted orientation-tensor anisotropic stiffness surrogate over an isotropic fiber-count descriptor. Together, the cases show how category theory can be both a mathematical language for discovery and an engineering specification for self-revising AI discovery systems.
Fiona Y. Wang, Markus J. Buehler
arXiv:2606.01444 · cs.AI, cond-mat.mtrl-sci, cs.CL, cs.LG, math.CT · submitted May 31, 2026 · updated Aug 21, 2026
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