ESCT Research Universe: A Navigator's Guide to the Experimental Program, Theoretical Branches, Version Genealogy, and Recommended Reading Order (Phases 1–36)

The ESCT (Entropy-Signaling Convergence Theory) research program has produced 23 Zenodo uploads across more than 36 experimental phases, spanning four active theoretical branches and multiple version lineages. Without a structured overview, the corpus is difficult to navigate for external researchers and risks becoming confusing even to the primary author. This document serves as a navigator’s guide. We map the full publication universe into four categories: Main Storyline (core empirical work, Phases 33–36), Active Sidelines (ESCT-CSI, ESCT-AI, Evolutionary Attractor Compression), Bridge Documents (audit records, historical archives), and Superseded Versions (eight uploads replaced by later iterations). A version genealogy traces the theoretical framework from v1.0 through v9.5-FINAL. Recommended reading orders are provided for three reader profiles: dynamical systems researchers, NLP/AI researchers, and philosophers of mind. We identify the single open problem blocking all three active branches: the Hopfield network control experiment required by Appendix C of the Phase 33–36 integrated report. Until this experiment is run, the ESCT-CSI bridge between physical basin entropy and semantic capacity remains vulnerable to the generic multi-stability interpretation. This navigator paper exists to prevent further parallel universe expansion and to focus the next phase of work on one decisive experiment. Keywords:ESCT, research roadmap, framework navigator, Frustration Zone, basin entropy, version genealogy, research overview, open problems, Hopfield control experiment, semantic capacity