Entropy Attunement Protocol: A Framework for Cognitive System Measurement

Technical report, originally published February 2026 (v1.0); this is v1.1, corrected October 2026. This document introduces the Entropy Attunement Protocol (EAP) — a voluntary standard for enabling understanding between cognitive systems — human, machine, or yet to emerge — through entropy measurement rather than consciousness attribution. EAP replaces the consciousness-dependent framing of its predecessor (the Universal Empathy Protocol v0.1) with a substrate-independent, graduated entropy spectrum. We define the four-dimensional Ψ (Psi) composite measure — informational, behavioral, adaptive, and relational entropy — that characterizes any cognitive system without requiring consciousness claims. The protocol is grounded in peer-reviewed quantum cognition mathematics (Busemeyer & Bruza, 2012) and extended with observational entropy theory (Aguirre et al.) and the Free Energy Principle (Friston, 2010). EAP is designed as open infrastructure for cognitive system interoperability — publicly documented and free to read and share. v1.1 corrections: withdrawn unvalidated accuracy figures; "just physics" restated as "just probability mathematics"; licensing language corrected to match CC BY-NC-ND; §5 platform table retained as the February 2026 record with a note that the four listed predictors were retired 2026-10-13.