Awe & Wonder Meta-Audit Protocol

Domain: Meta-Frameworks

Subdomain: Metaphilosophical Audit / Awe & Wonder

Version: 1.0

Version-Lock: SNP v15.0 / MNM v14.6 / August 23, 2025 | SID#1024-D4HG

Abstract

The Awe & Wonder Meta-Audit Protocol establishes rigorous, tiered procedures for recognizing, triaging, documenting, and adversarially reviewing claims of irreducible awe, wonder, and the sublime—those phenomena presenting themselves as epistemic boundaries. It is designed to maximize plural integrity, intellectual humility, and operational rigor, drawing on the standards and protections established in the Faith & Meaning, Dignity, and Plural Safeguards protocols. All references are directly accessible by hyperlink.

0. Triage: Encounter Filter

Step 0: Triage

Before initiating the Awe & Wonder Meta-Audit, a claim that an experience is irreducible, ineffable, or of the sublime must:

• a) Have first been processed using standard analytic or interpretive protocols of SE (e.g., psychological, phenomenological, or cultural analysis protocols).

• b) Demonstrably resist such analysis, with a clear process-record or testimony showing the analytic (or even plural) protocols did not resolve the experience’s core features.

• Outcome: Only when analytic resolution has failed due to the nature of the experience itself should the meta-audit trigger be deployed.

1. Scope & Purpose

• The protocol applies to experiences or testimonies of awe, wonder, or the sublime that, after triage, are found irreducible to current analytic or procedural frameworks.

• Recognizes these phenomena as special epistemic boundaries that demand protection, humility, and the retention of their alterity.

• Ensures that awe/wonder claims are neither prematurely flattened nor indefinitely locked out of review, while defending vulnerable cultural/minority cases.

2. Encounter Trigger & Boundary-Mark

• Trigger: Activate this protocol when a claim of awe/wonder is both (a) declared irreducible, and (b) has demonstrably resisted analytic processing per triage.

• Boundary Log: For each event:

  • Archive testimony, context, date, analytic attempts, and detailed phenomenological notes.

  • Categorize as Procedurally Un-Auditable (potentially tractable) or Constitutionally Un-Auditable (asserted as permanent).

3. Plural Witnessing & Testimony

• Requirements:

  • Minimum of two direct witnesses (one subject, one facilitator) plus at least two independent reviewers.

  • Testimony may be narrative, ritual, artistic, nonverbal, or digital.

  • For minority/cultural contexts: Invoke Plural Safeguards Protocol for dedicated handling, redaction privileges, and trauma-sensitivity.

• Logs must capture all dissenting, minority, or culturally unique expressions in their own terms.

4. Adversarial Review & Burden of Proof

Adversarial review is modeled on the Dignity meta-audit’s rigor:For a claim to be finally marked Constitutionally Un-Auditable:

• An adversarial reviewer must:

  1. Propose at least one specific, plausible future analytic, neurophenomenological, or hermeneutic method—relevant to the domain—that could, in principle, address the claim.

  2. Argue rigorously why even this advanced method would still fail to reduce, explain, or close the experience’s irreducible core.

  3. Archive both the candidate method and failure rationale alongside the boundary log, for recursive audit.

• Without this adversarial “burden of proof,” permanent boundary status may not be conferred.

5. Recursive Review & Audit Cycle

• Schedule: Every 5 years, boundary logs undergo:

  • Adversarial test for analytic advances or plural shifts.

  • Open revision based on new science, protocols, or cultural paradigms.

  • Explicit query: Is analytic closure now possible without violence or reduction to the phenomenon?

• All logs, testimony, dissent, and adversarial arguments must remain transparent, stable, and hyperlink-accessible.

6. Migration & Integrity Clauses

• Migration: Boundary events may be transferred to other protocols (e.g., Faith & Meaning, Spectra of Being, Dignity), only if:

  • No analytic flattening occurs.

  • All claimants, witnesses, and dissenters consent.

  • Migration rationale and persistent boundary status are logged in both source and destination.

  • Adversarial review ensures transfer is not a procedural evasion.

• Cultural & Minority Protection: The dedicated invocation of the Plural Safeguards Protocol is MANDATORY for encounters rooted in non-mainstream, indigenous, or creative epistemologies.

7. Pushback Mechanisms & Safeguards

• Flattening and exclusion risks are expressly prohibited: boundary events are not to be redefined as mere psychological artifacts or bypassed by migration.

• Every migration, triage, or audit process is subject to adversarial and plural review.

• Transparency & Logging: All steps, remarks, test cases, dissents, and reviews must be accessible for system-wide audit.

8. Protocol Anchors

• Faith & Meaning Meta-Audit Protocol

• Plural Safeguards Protocol

• Dignity Meta-Audit Protocol

• Spectra of Being Protocol

Appendices

Appendix A: Testimony & Dissent Format Examples

Testimony Example:“During the ritual, awe overwhelmed descriptive or analytic frameworks—even after repeated phenomenological and cultural analysis. The heart of the experience was untranslatable.”

Triage Example:“Processed via psychological protocol and phenomenological checklist. Initial analytic attempts failed to yield closure. Witnesses confirm irreducibility after plural committee review.”

Dissent Example:“Even if a future neurophenomenological protocol can record the event’s neural signature, the unspeakable horizon of meaning resists all description and analytic translation. This specific awe claim cannot be fully domesticated by any realistic future protocol.”

Appendix B: Adversarial Review Template

Stage	Adversarial Reviewer Action	Requirement	Outcome
1	Propose theoretical future audit method	Must be credible, discipline-relevant, not fanciful	Candidate is archived
2	Provide rigorous failure argument	Why method cannot capture this awe claim’s essence	Argument is logged
3	Challenge extent of “irreducibility”	Could any plural analytic committee break the impasse?	Logged & scheduled review

Appendix C: Cultural & Minority Plural Protocol

• All testimonies rooted in minority experience or tradition must:

  • Be handled with trauma-sensitivity and explicit consent.

  • May invoke redaction, form privacy, or creative expression as core narrative.

  • Invoke the Plural Safeguards Protocol at the triage phase and as a safeguard across the protocol’s stages.

Appendix D: Sample Migration & Audit Cycle Log

Date	Claimant	Event	Triage Attempts	Outcome	Next Scheduled Review	Linked Protocols
2025-08-23	Ritual Witness	Liminal Worship	Psych, Hermeneutic	Boundary Maintained	2030-08-23	Faith & Meaning
2025-08-23	Artistic Collective	Sound Installation	Plural, Dignity, Culture	Migrated (No Flattening)	2030-08-23	Spectra of Being

Appendix E: Five-Year Recursive Review Checklist

• Has any new analytic method (e.g., neuroAI, combinatorial plural review) emerged?

• Has the relevant cultural context shifted, opening new means of understanding?

• Are all dissent, testimony, and adversarial logs accessible and up to date?

• Does the phenomenon remain unbridgeable without epistemic or cultural violence?

Version-Lock Statement

All logs, migrations, adversarial reviews, and plural testimonies under this protocol are bound to SNP v15.0 and MNM v14.6 as of August 23, 2025. The entire protocol is locked for recursive audit, and review is only possible with direct reference to the authenticated and versioned logs and hyperlinks to foundational protocols.