This revision follows the discipline of “patch gaps without expanding the theory”: no new conceptual system is added; only structural gaps are repaired. There are six changes:

1) Added Section 2.4: explicitly states the bridge argument between the axioms and the evaluative framework, acknowledges and defends CBT’s minimum normative stance, and resolves the long-standing tension between “subjective axioms and objective evaluation”;

2) Added Section 3.4: makes the Hard Budget Constraint a formal precondition for EPV validity and an implication of the Property & Boundaries Axiom, closing the analytical loophole of “pseudo-capitalization” under soft constraints;

3) Added Section 3.5: treats reflexive environments as a third condition under which point-estimate EPV becomes invalid, provides diagnostic signals and handling rules, and grounds application-level judgments involving “false flows” in the main theory;

4) Added Section 11.6: clarifies the theoretical status of R-I-S-C as a state-classification map rather than a law of evolution, provides a list of necessary conditions for upward transition and triggers for regression, and explicitly acknowledges that a sufficient-conditions theory has not yet been established;

5) Added Section 13.5: adds a mandatory output requirement to the Analysis SOP—the Prospective Observation Point—so that falsifiability moves from a theoretical declaration into every concrete analysis;

6) Added Section 14.6: provides five common systematic errors in identifying components of r and corresponding self-check rules.

V3.53a Additions (Based on External Review Feedback; Three Corrections)

a) Section 2.4 adds a scope limitation to the bridge argument: the claim that positive-sum structures are superior applies mainly to actors who still depend on a future and stable Boundaries; it does not apply to one-shot players who know they are near the end. This also yields a reverse diagnostic rule: when an actor shifts from production toward plunder, the shift often reveals its own judgment about its remaining time horizon;

b) Section 3.4 weakens the inference from “is a real signal” to “is by default a real signal,” while adding an anti-whitewashing safeguard: stable support can be explicitly modeled as FCF_Transfer, but EPV under soft constraints must be reported separately as “Stand-Alone EPV + Support-Backed EPV.” The support-backed portion must separately assess withdrawal conditions and probabilities; reporting a single merged number is prohibited;

c) Terminology is unified throughout the text: “R-I-S-C Bus Evolution Chain” is formally renamed “R-I-S-C Hierarchical State Map” (with synchronized changes in the Abstract, Chapter 11, and Section 14.2), consistent with the theoretical-status clarification in Section 11.6.

V3.54 Additions (Bus Generation Interface: Entrepreneurial Experiments and Candidate Futures)

1) Added Section 6.5: establishes the “Bus Generation Interface,” distinguishes the Generation Domain from the Capitalization Domain, and clarifies that the Generation Domain does not mean “r is very high,” but that r does not yet have a stable object to which it can attach;

2) Formally defines the Entrepreneurial Function and its “Accounting Asymmetry”: an observable sacrifice in the present is committed to a real experiment on a future that cannot yet be fully capitalized;

3) Introduces Proto-Bus and establishes four admission criteria: Real Resource Commitment, Core Hypothesis, External Validation Interface, and Effective Death Condition;

4) Divides Death Conditions into Structural D and Declared D, and identifies a key operational manifestation of a Soft Budget Constraint as the systematic dismantling of Structural Death Conditions;

5) Establishes the Core-Hypothesis Re-registration Rule and the Proto-Bus Genealogy Ledger to prevent pivoting, renaming, and metric rewriting from becoming tools of indefinite extension;

6) Establishes A/B/C validation tiering and uses the Functional-Demand Counterfactual Test to distinguish genuine public demand from rescue support;

7) Defines Zombie explicitly as a degenerative state after loss of Proto-Bus eligibility, and proposes three falsifiable predictions corresponding respectively to the ecosystem-level outcomes associated with Soft Budgets, validation types, and Death Conditions;

8) Adds Step 0, “Domain Gate,” to Chapter 13, prohibiting the FCF of mature Buses from being combined with the unvalidated futures of Proto-Buses into a single steady-state EPV; Section 6.5 also preserves an interface with the Reflexivity Boundary in Section 3.5 without constructing a complete dynamic closed loop in V3.54.

Future Research Agenda (as of V3.54)

Entrepreneurship and the future-generation mechanism: partially closed. V3.54 has established the Bus Generation Interface, including the distinction between the Generation and Capitalization Domains, the Entrepreneurial Function, Proto-Bus, Structural and Declared Death Conditions, validation tiering, the Genealogy Ledger, the Hard-Budget selection mechanism, and the Zombie degenerative state. However, “how specific novelty itself is generated” remains unmodeled, and this version explicitly does not construct a complete equation of future generation.

Dynamic model of reflexivity: still open. V3.53a established the failure boundary for point-estimate EPV in strongly reflexive environments; V3.54 additionally identifies an interface through which Proto-Bus financing prices feed back into available resources, but a unified dynamic closed loop has not yet been built.

Dialogue with theoretical lineages: ongoing. Future work should position CBT more precisely relative to North, Williamson, Mises, Hayek, Kirzner, Schumpeter, Nelson-Winter, Alvarez-Barney, Taleb, and related traditions, clarifying what CBT inherits, translates, combines, and newly connects. The formal interface between Capitalization Participation Rate θ(t) and the main theory also remains to be completed.