How cECT Could Be Created A Philosophical Genealogy from Ingold, Popper, Deutsch/Marletto, Tononi, and Friston (Extended Version)

Abstract
This paper reconstructs a plausible philosophical pathway by which Computable Embodied Constructor Theory (cECT) could be created as a framework for engineering knowledge without treating subjective phenomenology as a scientific primitive. The reconstruction follows a deliberate dependency order. Tim Ingold provides the foundational move: knowledge as skillful grip grown in ongoing engagement with an environment. Karl Popper adds the requirement of objective knowledge—externalizable and criticizable structures whose validity does not depend on a knowing subject's certainty. David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto supply the physical backbone via constructor theory: knowledge is tied to counterfactual capability, i.e., which transformations are possible or impossible in nature, and information is defined in purely physical terms. Giulio Tononi contributes a formal lens for integration/irreducibility, clarifying why robust competence often demands a unified cause–effect organization rather than a bag of separable subroutines. Karl Friston supplies a computable motor—active inference and free-energy minimization—by which skillful engagement can be expressed as explicit update laws coupling inference and action. cECT emerges as an engineering epistemology: knowledge is an auditable trajectory of an embodied system that becomes capable of reliably bringing about transformations while maintaining integrated organization under physical constraints.
Keywords: physical epistemology; embodied cognition; constructor theory; active inference; free energy; integrated information; auditability