The Response-Mode Evidential Transfer Principle (RMETP): A General Theoretical Architecture for Response Modes, Evidential Role Transfer, Interpretive Divergence, and Multi-Agent Systems

The Response-Mode Evidential Transfer Principle (RMETP) is a proposed general theoretical framework for studying how the interpretation of a response can change the perceived evidential significance of a claim. Its primary case concerns an agent who raises a claim against another agent and receives a response that challenges the adequacy of the claimant's evidence without explicitly denying the claim. The claimant may interpret this response as an indirect signal about the respondent's stance and may subsequently revise the perceived plausibility of the original claim.The framework separates response classification, non-rejection detection, stance attribution, evidential role transfer, epistemic-bridge assessment, perceived-model-calibrated evidence divergence, decision dynamics, recursive feedback, and multi-agent propagation. Its central distinction is between a response's observable content, the interpretation attributed to that response, and the truth of the underlying claim.The paper defines a formal ontology, introduces a variable registry, specifies likelihood-ratio and belief-update models, classifies contradictions, dilemmas, paradoxes, and divergences, and outlines an eighteen-layer architecture. It further develops operational measures, research hypotheses, counterexamples, alternative explanations, simulation procedures, and a staged validation roadmap.The mathematical expressions are proposed modelling devices rather than empirically established universal laws. The framework does not assume that failure to deny a claim entails acceptance, confession, or truth. Instead, it treats such inference as a testable interpretive process whose validity depends on context, response-generation mechanisms, background information, and the evidential relationship between the response and the claim.Keywords: response-mode differentiation; evidential role transfer; stance attribution; epistemic bridge; likelihood ratio; belief updating; interpretive divergence; cybernetics; information theory: decision theory; multi-agent systems; formal argumentation; empirical validation.