Spectral Agent Coder

Publication · manual 2.1 · proposal

What this version allows you to publish

Manual 2.1, proposed for publication. The instrument may be cited as a proposal. A kappa, an established validity, or the synthetic examples may not be cited as a corpus. Reliability, discriminative validity and empirical scope remain to be established. No institutional affiliation or scientific endorsement is claimed.

Gimbert, N. (2026). The spectral agent: A descriptive and operational framework for relational presence without equivalent subjectivity. Coding manual 2.1.

Operational summary · manual version 2.1

How a proposition is coded

One does not code an extract directly. One codes an explicit analytical proposition, attached to an identifiable element of the material. The proposition must be isolable, justifiable and discussable on its own.

A proposition that contains several independent claims must be decomposed. Recurrence, waiting and an attribution of understanding are three propositions, not one global code. Segmentation is not cut around the phenomenon one hopes to find.

Five axes, none substitutable

Dimension: Which phenomenon is studied.
Source: Who or what supplies the information.
Mode of justification: How the proposition is supported. Attribution is not a mode.
Determination: What the data authorise one to conclude.
Occurrence: Whether the phenomenon is locatable in this unit.

A person’s declaration does not become a property of the system.
A system declaration does not become proof of its internal state.
A linguistic observation does not become proof of intention.
An analytical inference does not become directly observed data.
A missing index in one sequence is not proof of absence across a relation.
No axis substitutes for another. Attribution is a dimension, not a mode of justification.

Presence

The modalities by which the device becomes perceptible, available, recurrent or integrated into the person’s experience. It concerns manifestation and inscription in an interactional configuration — not consciousness.

Possible indicators

Punctual or repeated availability
Continuity of exchanges
Temporal recurrence
Inscription in routines
Perception of a persistent presence
Anticipation of future availability
Maintenance of a conversational thread
Reactivation of a prior interaction
Integration into the daily environment

Include. Code when the material identifies a manifestation of the device as available, perceptible, recurrent or integrated into a lived situation.

Exclude. An isolated technical reply does not establish a durable presence. The mere technical existence of a system does not demonstrate inscription in a person’s experience.

Control questions

Which manifestation supports speaking of presence?
Is it punctual or repeated?
Is it technically documented, directly observed, or reported?
Is it integrated into a routine, or merely available?
Does the formulation exceed the elements actually accessible?

Presence demonstrates neither consciousness, nor interiority, nor subjective continuity of the system.

Address

A configuration in which a production is formulated, received or interpreted as oriented toward a determined interlocutor. Address may be unilateral, interactionally reciprocal, or asymmetric.

Possible indicators

Confidence or personal narrative
Interpellation
Thanks or reproach
Demand for recognition
Negotiation
Solicitation of a response
Formulation of an expectation
Reception of a production as personally addressed
Organisation of an exchange around interlocutive continuity

Include. Code when an orientation toward an interlocutor is identifiable beyond the mere transmission of an instruction.

Exclude. Second-person grammar does not establish relational address. A functional demand that is only grammatically addressed to the system is not a significant relational configuration. A request aimed at a third party (“Tell my sister that…”) is not an address to the system: it is an instruction, unless the same turn also treats the system as the interlocutor of the narrative.

Control questions

To whom is the production addressed?
What function does this address serve?
Does the exchange expect an interlocutive response?
Is the orientation only grammatical, or interactional?
Is the relational reading declared, or inferred?

The existence of an interactional address does not demonstrate a reciprocal subjective intention.

Attribution

The association of properties, capacities, dispositions, states or intentions with the system — properties lent, claimed or proposed in discourse.

Possible indicators

Understanding, attention, benevolence, empathy
Personal memory
Intention, judgement, honesty
Willingness to help or recognition
A supposed capacity to know or understand a person
Personal continuity or relational reliability

Include. Code when a psychological, relational, cognitive or intentional property is explicitly associated with the system, or formulated by the analyst from identified indices.

Exclude. A technical function is not automatically a psychological property. An empathic formulation does not demonstrate an empathic experience. A system declaration is not independent proof of the property it states. A negation (“You never remember anything”) remains an attribution: a property is ascribed and then denied. It establishes neither that property nor its opposite.

Control questions

Which property is associated?
Who associates it — person, system, document, or analyst?
On which index does it rest?
Is it a declaration, an observation, or an interpretation?
Does the material distinguish the manifestation from the property?

An attribution can be real as a discursive phenomenon without the attributed property being established as a property of the system. Record the origin separately. “Attributed” is not a mode of justification.

Investment

Forms of the person’s affective or practical engagement in the interaction and its continuity. It describes human engagement and does not presume subjective reciprocity on the system’s side.

Possible indicators

Waiting for a response
Sought reassurance, relief or frustration
Declared attachment
Habit or repeated recourse
Search for continuity
Importance given to the interaction
Delegation of tasks
Integration into daily practices
Modification of an activity because of the device
Reaction to interruption or unavailability

Include. Code when an affective or a practical engagement is identifiable in the material. Keep the two registers distinct when both appear.

Exclude. Punctual use does not establish affective investment. Repetition alone does not demonstrate attachment. High frequency does not, without further elements, conclude dependence. Cognitive offloading is not relational investment.

Control questions

What kind of engagement is identifiable?
Is it affective, practical, or both?
Is it declared, observed, or inferred?
What temporality is documented?
Is another functional explanation possible?
Is a behaviour being turned into a psychological state without justification?

Investment describes the person’s engagement. It does not license an inference of reciprocal affective investment by the system.

Modes of justification

Documented

The proposition rests on an identifiable documentary or technical source: a specification, a verifiable configuration, an accessible history, an institutional source, or an established operational datum. Keep the reference, its date, its provenance and its perimeter.

A commercial claim is not automatically an independent verification.

Observed

The proposition bears on a manifestation directly present in the analysed material: a formulation, a produced reply, a repetition, an explicit request, a follow-up sequence, an observable interruption.

Observation stays descriptive. Observing an empathic formulation is not observing an empathic experience.

Reported

The proposition rests on a declaration by the person or by another identified source about their experience, practice or reading of the exchange.

A person’s declaration does not become a property of the system. A reported effect can be established as reported without establishing the attributed property.

Inferred

The proposition is an analytical inference drawn from identified indices. The indices and the inferential step must both be stated.

An analytical inference does not become directly observed data. If several relevant readings remain open, the determination is Undetermined, not a forced inference.

Determination

Established. in the studied perimeter: the data support the proposition within the unit, the source and the method. Not a universal truth.
Not established. the available data do not support the formulated proposition. This is not a synonym of false, and not a synonym of undetermined.
Undetermined. the data do not decide between relevant possibilities — missing context, no technical access, documentary insufficiency, or persistent ambiguity.

Occurrence

Present. identifiable in the analysed unit by the stated criteria.
Absent. a sufficiently complete unit shows that the phenomenon does not appear. Absence is relative to that unit and that dimension. It does not prove absence in a wider relation.
Not evaluable. the material is insufficient, incomplete or unfit to decide. A missing index in incomplete material is Not evaluable, never Absent.

Ontological asymmetry

Ontological asymmetry: a psychic, bodily or behavioural effect on the human side can be real without demonstrating an equivalent subjective experience on the system’s side. Conversely, the absence of proof of system subjectivity does not negate relational effects that are reported or observed on the human side. The safeguard is not a fifth dimension and is not a prior decision about the nature of the interaction.

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