In the Valley, time moves on while agents think, actions have physical consequences, and a discovery helps the group only if it is shared, remembered or written down.
That lets the study tell apart failures a conversation alone cannot. Did an agent fail because the world changed, because it misread the change, or because the news never reached it?
An institution can outlive its members
The research follows knowledge from discovery to teaching to practical use. It asks whether a group can finish work that no individual can, and what happens to that ability when an experienced member dies. A technique can survive in another agent, a written procedure, a tool or a changed organisation.
The study credits only what happened in the world. A report of a discovery earns no credit until someone puts the discovery to use.
Four worlds of a hundred agents each are followed for thirty simulated days. Durability is judged by what a society can still accomplish after it loses members, including whether its successors keep what it knew and recover productive cooperation.