Research for a more coherent world
Root Sequence is an open research project about the connections between people, technology, institutions, and the systems we build.
We examine problems that don’t fit neatly within one field. What looks like a technical limitation might also be a question of ownership, coordination, access, or whose knowledge counts. The work follows those connections into practical projects and imagined futures, developing ideas that others can examine, question, and build on.
Root Sequence is an independent project started by Rae Lovejoy. Begin with the everyday example, read the current research, or explore selected related projects.
About Root Sequence
About this project.
Root Sequence studies how intelligence, technology, and social systems shape the conditions people live in.
Intelligence here includes human reasoning, machine intelligence, and the ways groups and institutions gather information, learn, and make decisions.
A service can meet its targets and still be difficult to use. A useful technology can depend on rules that make it hard to repair. Looking at either in isolation leaves part of the problem unexplained.
Why “Root Sequence”?
A root is an underlying condition or relationship from which an outcome grows. A sequence is what happens as conditions interact through time, feedback, choice, and consequence.
Together, the name asks: What conditions made this possible, and what does it make possible next? What happens next can become part of the starting conditions for whatever follows.
Read why the project is called Root Sequence Opens in a new tabWhat the project investigates
The research follows connections between technical choices and social conditions: what a tool assumes about its users, who can change it, whose needs are missed, and what happens when it fails. It also revisits alternatives that were tried, abandoned, or never developed.
From questions to projects
The work includes research notes, essays, design proposals, and experiments. Sources, assumptions, and unresolved questions stay with the work so people can examine how a conclusion was reached and where it might fail.
Some questions lead to community tools or computing designs; others inform Coherent World and No One Noticed . Findings and problems from those projects can feed back into the research. An imagined result in a story is kept separate from evidence that something works.
Open work, separate responsibilities
Root Sequence is intended to grow through contributions instead of depending on one person. How decisions and long-term responsibility can be shared is still being developed.
Each project keeps its own permissions and boundaries. Contributing to one does not require agreement with, or responsibility for, the others.
An everyday example
A repairable device needs more than screws
Imagine a phone designed so its battery and screen can be replaced. The parts are removable, but replacements are not sold to the public. Repair instructions are restricted, and the software rejects components installed outside an authorized shop.
The device is technically repairable, but the system around it prevents many people from repairing it.
| In the device | The battery and screen can be removed. |
|---|---|
| Around the repair | Parts, instructions, and software access are restricted. |
| For the owner | A possible repair can still be out of reach. |
A repairable design is not necessarily a repairable system.
Here, coherence means looking beyond the object itself. Parts, instructions, software, ownership, cost, and the right to make changes all affect whether repair is actually possible.
Read the coherence notes Opens in a new tabSelected research and writing
A few places to begin.
These are selected entry points, not the complete collection. They lead to longer source documents on GitHub, where the wider body of research notes, analysis, systems work, and essays lives.
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Working paper
Coherence Is a Systems Property
A developing argument about examining intelligent systems alongside the institutions, infrastructure, and conditions they depend on.
AI-assisted draft. Author review pending; not peer reviewed.
Read the working paper Opens in a new tab -
Conceptual framework
Intelligence Ecology
How training, markets, institutions, permissions, and material conditions reward some forms of intelligent behavior over others.
Developing framework. Claims about a particular system require their own evidence.
Read Intelligence Ecology Opens in a new tab -
Design principle
Making systems understandable
When a tool or service goes wrong, what do people need to know, and what should they be able to do next?
Read the notes on understandable systems Opens in a new tab -
Systems method
Events, patterns, and scale
A method for moving between individual events and wider patterns without losing evidence, causality, or accountability.
Read the systems note Opens in a new tab -
Systems note
Resilience and graceful degradation
How to preserve essential capabilities when dependencies fail, including diverse fallbacks, maintenance, local capacity, and humane limits.
Read the resilience notes Opens in a new tab -
Historical analysis
Revisiting ideas that were left behind
How to investigate an old possibility without assuming it would have worked, or that people would choose it now.
Read the notes on past possibilities Opens in a new tab
Other possibilities
What could be different?
Some work begins with a possibility rather than a prediction: another way to travel, share knowledge, use technology, or spend a day.
We don’t need to invent the future from scratch. It was here all along until it was abandoned.
From Abandoned Futures Opens in a new tab
That line starts an investigation. Which ideas were proposed? Why did they stop? What would have to change for another attempt? An attractive proposal still needs scrutiny.
How a possibility becomes an inquiry
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Recover the proposal
Find what was actually proposed, who was involved, what evidence survives, and which conditions made it possible.
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Trace what happened
Distinguish technical failure from political blockage, neglect, enclosure, coordination problems, or a good reason to stop.
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Test it now
Ask who benefits, who carries the work, cost, and risk, what would need to change, and what evidence would count against trying again.
Fiction gives us a place to explore how a different outcome might feel. A scene can raise a question without proving that its imagined solution works.
Explore the connected projectsSelected related projects
Ideas, in different forms.
This is a selected group of projects that share questions while keeping their own purposes, permissions, and decisions. The full project map includes the wider ecosystem.
- Coherent World Speculative design · Private development
- Possible arrangements for society and everyday life, considered together. The novel No One Noticed draws on this work, but Coherent World can explore possibilities beyond it.
- No One Noticed Novel in progress · Public site not available yet
- A science-fiction novel about people living through changes brought about by an advanced AI. Manuscript extracts will wait until they are ready for readers.
- Coherent Computing Computing research · No public release
- Design work on an operating system that adapts to different people, devices, and uses. There is no released system to download yet.
- Community Infrastructure Practical design · Private development
- Tools for sharing needs, coordinating help, and organizing activities within communities.
- Being Human(e): An Incomplete Guide Practical field guide · Public website not built yet
- A developing field guide grounded in ordinary human experience and the repeated choice to be humane.
- Museum of Ordinary Life Independent archive · Public website
- Records of everyday objects, places, and personal accounts. Contributors’ permissions remain separate from the fictional Museum in the novel.
- Root Sequence Wiki Project reference · Public website
- A reference for project names, recurring terms, relationships, and where the longer work lives.
Take part
Take part in Root Sequence.
The project welcomes questions, sources, corrections, translations, alternative explanations, and tests of its ideas. For now, participation happens through public GitHub channels.
Discuss questions and ideas
Join Root Sequence Discussions to raise a research question, share an idea, or talk about a possible contribution. Discussions are public and require a GitHub account to post.
Open project discussions Opens in a new tabSuggest a correction
Use the project’s issue board for a factual correction, a broken link, or a reading or accessibility problem. Describe the page and what happened. Issues are public and require a GitHub account to post.
Open the project issue board Opens in a new tabThese are public participation routes, not a private contact service. Please keep personal information, confidential material, and security-sensitive details out of public posts.
Read the contribution guide Opens in a new tabEach option opens a panel explaining what it is for. Continue to GitHub in a new tab when you’re ready. Nothing is submitted from this page.