This preprint presents Menard's Governance Conjecture, a trace-basis conjecture proposing that consequential governance disputes possess a trace basis reducible to Physical Reality, Human Agency, Interaction between them, or combinations thereof. The conjecture emerged from a primitive reduction research program and subsequently underwent blind validation, foundational falsification, physical reduction attacks, theory-separation investigation, evaluative-layer analysis, and formalization. The research produced two principal findings. First, no counterexample was identified requiring an explanatory primitive beyond Physical Reality, Human Agency, and Interaction in order to explain the existence of a consequential governance dispute. Second, evidence emerged suggesting that trace explanation and disposition determination may constitute distinct explanatory layers. Legitimacy, obligation, and normative force exhibited characteristics consistent with evaluative variables rather than trace primitives. No claim of proof is made. No claim of universality is made. The work is presented as a falsifiable conjecture accompanied by a documented validation history, an explicit falsification condition, a public challenge protocol, and a public falsification ledger schema. The conjecture remains subject to challenge, revision, and falsification.
Mark Menard (Tue,) studied this question.