Concept Registry — the Zone File¶
Status: Reference — maintained alongside the concepts themselves.
Scope: Every load-bearing term in the repository, with its layer, home file, epistemic status, and operationalization. This is the "DNS" of the project's personal web: for each name, where it resolves, and whether it is a protocol (operationalized / formalized) or a poetic hostname (narrative, and marked as such). The governing rule, from the glossary and Canonical Path v2: a term with no layer, no home, no experiment, and no open problem is decoration. This page makes the rule auditable.
Status vocabulary: operationalized (has a runnable experiment / measurement) · formalized (math, schema, or metric exists; no decisive experiment yet) · hypothesis (tagged claim, falsifiable in principle) · speculative (entertained, not committed) · narrative (poetic hostname — legitimate, but never evidence) · retired (no longer used as a claim).
Foundation and model identification¶
| Concept | Home | Status | Operationalization / anchor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimal classical process foundation | Foundations Reconstruction | formalized; established mathematical substrate; repository minimality claim open to proof-level challenge | standard Borel interfaces + Markov kernels + sequential/parallel composition; derivations, comparison, and adversarial audit in the home file |
| Unqualified generator | generator audit | retired as a foundation | replace with transition kernel, process family, candidate process model, model class, or an explicitly listed process-model bundle; qualified technical meanings remain |
| The Generator Question (generic forward/inverse asymmetry) | the-generator-question.md | legacy framing — superseded as a foundation | bounded identification, equivalence-class, coverage, and intervention questions survive in the inverse benchmark; P \(\ne\) NP and identity reduction do not |
| Trace → candidate process models | trace-to-generator.md (legacy title) | bounded hypothesis → operationalized | inverse-reconstruction benchmark; model family, target equivalence, evidence, interventions, and cost must be declared |
| Construction vs. Deduction | construction-vs-deduction.md | formalized framing (Curry–Howard is theorem-grade) | family-search Occam curves; Bishop/Howard/Martin-Löf |
| Invariance (what survives a transformation family) | invariance-and-identity.md; reconstruction §4.5 | formalized framing (Klein/Noether anchors; generalized to semigroups and interventions) | name the transformation family, represented quantity, and equality notion; a group is sufficient but not required |
| Consistent-process-model equivalence class | benchmark README; Open Problem 11 | operationalized (measured) | CA rule 90 single-seed: class size 8; refinement under interventions; no unique hidden mechanism claim |
| Measurement vs. intervention (coupling is not identification) | measurement-as-weak-intervention.md | formalized framing — three of four regimes measured | two axes: dynamical footprint × identifying power; conditioning and causal replacement are distinct; regime 4 (the metric enters the process) remains pre-registered and untested |
Research frontier¶
| Concept | Home | Status | Operationalization / anchor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverse-reconstruction benchmark (v0–v1.13) | lab/benchmarks/inverse-reconstruction/ | operationalized | noise / observability / coverage / interventions / finite-DSL search / model exploitation / marked uncertainty / closed-loop measurement / ensemble size / coupled-family misspecification (v1.8) / substitution-dependency boundary (v1.9) / budget-matched redundant support (v1.10) / dynamic-population selection boundary (v1.11: acutely useful support selected downward) / partner-rule comparison (v1.12: visibility sorts the network, does not retain the trait) / cost relocation (v1.13: group funding nearly removes the penalty and reverses invasion, at a cost in population size) |
| Capability loading | Viable Corridor §7.1, App. C.4/D | demonstrated in-model (two independent models) | TEO ODE + agent-ecology ABM; real agents open |
| Grokking, generator reading | grokking-phase-transition.md | hypothesis with strong external anchor | Power 2022; Nanda 2023 (mech-interp executed the inverse) |
| Provenance depth / verification economy | Log 017 | formalized schema (proposal) | narrative origin: Entry 15; C2PA/SBOM siblings |
| Animism as generator prior | animism-as-generator-prior.md | hypothesis | the agent prior over equivalence classes (HADD, Guthrie, Dennett's intentional stance); Occam-sibling with world-dependent payoff |
| Information ladder (Shannon → Kolmogorov → Bateson → computation) | static-information-and-living-process.md | formalized framing (reading aid over textbook formalisms) | H/K in the axioms; Bateson's "difference that makes a difference" = the v1.1 distinguishing-trace result, named; computation-as-unfolding = Log 016 |
| Coupled-process composition | static-information-and-living-process.md | [HYPOTHESIZED] bridge; finite artifact measured |
benchmark v1.8: coupled data can leave a declared single-rule family empty; supplying the coupled family restores fit where the observed channel transmits the coupling. This diagnoses model-family misspecification, not a unique mechanism, higher ontological level, ecology, or life. |
| Co-stabilization (self-maintenance threshold) | static-information-and-living-process.md (§open questions) | [HYPOTHESIZED] at the ecology/self-maintenance level; functional support measured in v1.10, evolutionary-retention criterion not supported in v1.11 and v1.12; nearly removed but not reversed by group funding in v1.13 |
v1.11 endogenizes population occupancy, heritable support/link traits, realized link turnover, costs, reproduction, mutation, and death on a fixed spatial neighborhood. The evolved links help in paired acute ablation, but support is selected downward in all 16 seeds. v1.12 then tested partner choice, conditional reciprocity, and assortment under the same accounting with partner information explicitly paid for: none reverses selection, and partner choice instead excludes non-contributors from the network while they persist in the population. This is not spontaneous ecology or metabolism. NOT self-binding (phase 6). |
| World models & VLA systems | world-models-and-vla.md | hypothesis (mapping) | world models fit task-relative candidate dynamics; VLA systems couple policies to observations and physical actions; v1.3 measures a related optimizer's-curse toy, not quantitative transfer or unique mechanism recovery |
| Cooperative intelligence at the separatrix | cooperative-intelligence-at-the-separatrix.md | [HYPOTHESIZED] conceptual bridge — unmeasured |
distributed cognition / polycentric governance / collective and hybrid intelligence (Hutchins; Ostrom; Woolley et al.; Dellermann et al.); proposed complementarity, revision, authority, and viability tests; not a third spine or a collective-consciousness claim |
| Practice–culture feedback (recurrent practice) | from-action-to-culture.md; Open Problem 12 | [HYPOTHESIZED] integration — unmeasured |
intention–behavior gap, habit, practice theory, routine dynamics, structuration, cultural repertoires, and ritualization (Gollwitzer; Wood & Rünger; Reckwitz; Feldman & Pentland; Giddens; Swidler; Bell); identity bridge anchored in Invariance and Identity with context/time/role/tool/disruption as a test-specific transformation set; ritual explicitly not the umbrella term |
Identity layer¶
| Concept | Home | Status | Operationalization / anchor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mirror Problem | Open Problem 1; dramatized in Entry 02 | open problem | Observer Divergence protocol (mock embeddings — real models pending) |
| Test-relative identity | Foundations Reconstruction §5.1 | formalized dependency; test-family selection remains domain-specific | \(x\sim_{\mathcal Q}x'\) iff every declared test has the same outcome law; predictive equivalence is the computational-mechanics special case |
| Chord vs. Arpeggio | chord-vs-arpeggio-identity.md | hypothesis — first toy dissociation measured; functionally deflated; adversarially probed | IP metric; Co-Instantiation open problem; exp5: bindings dissociate behaviorally (violations 0.74/0.59/0.03), and sequential-within-one-step is measurably still an arpeggio (12% leak); functional status (§ in home file): joint satisfaction at the commitment boundary — refresh/commit ratio + composition, not simultaneity; exp7: hand-built mimics fail to fake the regime — the commit property under lure is the unfooled measurement; optimized mimic open |
| Identity Persistence (IP) | lab/metrics/identity_persistence.py | formalized metric — blind class demonstrated | not yet run on real models; in exp5 its ordering is by design (the sanity floor), not a finding; exp7: consultation-without-composition scores 1.0 — IP certifies the guest list, not the negotiation |
| Δ-Kohärenz | lab/metrics/delta_coherence.py | formalized metric | not yet run on real models; measured limit (exp5): blind to binding structure at toy scale — diagnosed in exp6 as a wrong-level failure: per-step increment statistics see the same binding at |d| ≈ 4 |
| Identity reduction (identity as hidden-process recovery) | the-generator-question.md | retired as a foundation | replaced by test-relative identity; predictive, mechanistic, historical, embodied, and phenomenal sameness must not be conflated |
| Consciousness (global availability + self-reconstruction loop) | consciousness-as-global-availability.md | hypothesis (functional architecture); no phenomenal derivation | access, binding, revision, and perturbation tests can be operationalized; experience requires an independent bridge axiom not adopted by the foundation |
| Reflexive depth (Kegan's subject-object move) | consciousness-as-global-availability.md (§On Levels) | [HYPOTHESIZED] mapping; adaptive-estimation toy operationalized in exp8 |
exp8 shows an adaptive Kalman estimator beating a fixed-\(Q\) estimator after a volatility shift. Both tested filters omit a bias state, so their constant-bias failure is not a general identifiability result. This measures adaptive estimation in one Gaussian task, not Kegan stages or consciousness. Augmented-bias, initial-state, external-reference, alternative-baseline, and real-agent controls remain open. |
| Consciousness as generator coherence | machine-consciousness-as-generator-coherence.md | legacy terminology for a functional-architecture hypothesis; experience out of scope | reinterpret only as process coherence under declared tests; no behavioral or architectural result establishes phenomenology |
| Psychedelics as perturbation | psychedelics-as-perturbation.md | hypothesis (mapping over REBUS) | self-intervention reading; integration = invariant extraction; sober basis as referee; epistemics only — practice out of scope |
Safety / application layer¶
| Concept | Home | Status | Operationalization / anchor |
|---|---|---|---|
| TEO (Thermodynamics of Emergent Orchestration) | teo-framework/; derivation | formalized model | teo-civilization sim |
| Viable Corridor | papers/viable-corridor.md | [FORMAL] (necessity) + [CONJECTURE] (sufficiency) + [HEURISTIC] (civilization mapping) |
Appendix C (ODE) + D (ABM); working draft |
| Substrate Veto | substrate-veto-thermodynamics.md | hypothesis / model assumption | binds endogenously in the canonical TEO model |
| Biological Veto / Bootloader | ai-alignment-biological-veto.md | design hypothesis | ai-alignment-veto toy |
| Action Budgets (hard vs. soft) | IA-doc anchors; paper P7 | operationalized in-model | agent-ecology ABM |
| Impedance Matching / Latency as Mercy | Log 002, Log 012 | design hypothesis | no simulation yet; dramatized in Entry 01 |
| Transition Problem | the-transition-problem.md | open problem | flagged in paper §7.4 as harder than the static result |
| The city as deployed intelligence | the-city-as-deployed-intelligence.md | hypothesis, strong external anchors | West's scaling laws (capability loading, measured); Jacobs vs. Moses (the documented single-axis catastrophe); flagged as the tractable Class B field site (N=thousands vs N=1) |
| City panel protocol (pre-registered) | Log 018 | protocol — frozen before data contact | H1 conjunction / H2 capability loading / H3 unwatched axis, with falsifiers; commit hash as timestamp (Log 017 mechanism); execution open, explicitly an invitation |
Narrative layer (poetic hostnames — marked, never evidence)¶
| Concept | Home | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machines of Loving Grace | machines-of-loving-grace.md | narrative | formal counterpart: the Viable Corridor paper |
| Narrative as Cognitive Technology | narrative-as-cognitive-technology.md | hypothesis (about narratives) | internal datum: Entry 15 → Log 017 |
| Art–Science: one practice, two referees | art-science-one-practice-two-referees.md | hypothesis | receipts: elegance curves (family search), Entry 15 → Log 017, Morelli/Ginzburg (evidential paradigm) |
| The Inversion / Exchange Rate / Assay vocabulary | Entry 15 | narrative | formal counterpart: Log 017 |
| The conscious universe / transmission cosmology | Entry 16 | narrative — kept question, not a claim | the divergence-query analysis lives in the benchmark README and the psychedelics note; the story dramatizes the retreat-tell and the honest residue |
| Emergent spacetime / LQG motifs | Entry 16 (world-texture) | narrative | theory-side: at most a future intake line in generative-form-systems; no repo claims about quantum gravity |
| Fractal Architecture of Emergence | fractal-architecture-of-emergence.md | hypothesis, under-evidenced | related-work map demands scale-invariance diagnostics before "fractal" is more than a figure |
| Mycelial Veto | the-mycelial-veto.md | narrative/speculative | no operationalization — flagged by this registry: needs an experiment, an open problem, or an explicit narrative marking |
| Thermodynamic Hardware Manifesto | thermodynamic-hardware-manifesto.md | [SPECULATIVE] |
frontdoor lists hardware prototyping as speculative/long-horizon |
| "Grand Synthesis" | — | retired | removed from all frontdoor surfaces (2026-06); kept here so its retirement is on record |
Meta / governance¶
| Concept | Home | Status | Operationalization / anchor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feynman Mode | feynman-mode.md | governance check | seven questions, each with a documented catch from this repo's own history; run before committing concepts/essays |
Maintenance rule: new load-bearing terms enter this registry in the same change that introduces them, or they don't enter the repository. Terms whose row cannot be filled honestly (no home, no status, no anchor) are either marked narrative or removed. The registry is the audit the governance rule always implied — kept short enough to actually read.