...and then there were none.

Ten Little Indians

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; 

One choked his little self and then there were nine. 

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; 

One overslept himself and then there were eight. 

Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon; 

One said he'd stay there and then there were seven. 

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; 

One chopped himself in halves and then there were six. 

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive; 

A bumblebee stung one and then there were five. 

Five little Indian boys going in for law; 

One got in Chancery and then there were four. 

Four little Indian boys going out to sea; 

A red herring swallowed one and then there were three. 

Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo; 

A big bear hugged one and then there were two. 

Two Little Indian boys sitting in the sun; 

One got frizzled up and then there was one. 

One little Indian boy left all alone; 

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

The Event: Particles, Primes, and Other Fundamental Ontological Building Blocks

 

Badiou vs Deleuze & Guattari

The Simili in Multis

from Google AI:

Particles, in modern physical and philosophical interpretations, are increasingly understood not as fundamental, enduring "little balls of matter," but as ontological events or ephemeral, local, and discrete manifestations of underlying, continuous fields. This perspective treats particles as "primes"—the irreducible units or "atoms" of interaction—that only exist when they are created, destroyed, or exchanged, effectively making the act of interaction (an event) the fundamental reality.

Particles as Ontological Events

Epiphenomena of Fields: In quantum field theory (QFT), particles are interpreted as localized excitations or "ripples" of quantum fields, acting as "epiphenomena" rather than the fundamental substance.

Interaction-dependent Existence: A particle is better understood as a conserved exchange of properties (energy, momentum, charge) rather than a continuously existing object. They are "events" that occur when fields interact, not permanent, independent entities.

Events over Substance: This view shifts the ontology from a "substance ontology" (fields or particles as things) to an "event ontology," where the basic building blocks of reality are events of measurement or interaction, such as those described in Haag’s Local Quantum Physics.

Particles as Primes (Irreducible Units)

Indivisible Interactors: Particles are "prime" in the sense that they are the minimal, discrete units of energy or angular momentum exchanged between systems.

Prime Matter (Aristotelian view): Some modern interpretations draw on Aristotelian "prime matter," seeing it as an "indivisible and atomless bare particularity" that acts as an enduring substrate of fields, which manifests as particles.

Numerical Identity: In Quantum Field Theory, particles of the same type are conceptually indistinguishable, meaning they lack individual identity, which reinforces the view that it is the type of interaction (event) that defines the particle, not its own intrinsic nature.

Implications of this Ontology 

Primitive Ontology: PO approaches in quantum mechanics, such as the "flashes" theory (GRWf), suggest that these "events" or "spots" in spacetime are the fundamental, primitive entities from which macrophysical objects are composed.

Measurement and Time: These models suggest that quantum events (such as wavefunction collapse) occur in a present-centered way, emphasizing that the "event" or "interaction" is the moment that makes reality definite.

Ontic Structural Realism: Given that particles cannot be clearly defined, some philosophers argue that the fundamental, persistent entities are actually the mathematical structures (relations) of the fields, rather than the particles themselves.

More from Google AI:

Prime numbers are considered the "atomic particles" of mathematics because, like physical atoms, they are the fundamental building blocks from which all other integers are constructed via multiplication. Recent research has furthered this analogy by modeling prime numbers as physical particles to discover hidden patterns.

Key Aspects of Particles and Primes:

• The Analogy: Just as physical particles combine to form complex matter, prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, ...) multiply to form composite integers, as outlined by the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic.
• Modeling as Physical Matter: Researchers, including Salvatore Torquato, modeled prime numbers as a one-dimensional "liquid" or "solid" of particles (spheres) to study their arrangement.
• Hidden Structure: By subjecting this "prime gas" to virtual X-ray diffraction, researchers discovered that primes behave like a quasicrystal—a material with ordered, but non-repeating, aperiodic structure.
• Surprising Order: Contrary to the belief that primes are distributed randomly, this "particle" approach shows they possess a "hidden order" or "fractal chaos".
• Connection to Physics: This "prime-number-as-particle" approach allows mathematicians to use tools from material science and statistical mechanics to analyze the distribution of primes. Some researchers even link prime structures in complex fields to particle physics concepts like leptons and hadrons.

This perspective offers a new way to understand the Riemann hypothesis and the overall distribution of prime numbers.

May the 4th Be with You!

Progressive Liberals Weaponized "Shame"...

 ...and Monetized Trauma thru DEI Racial Guilt-Pride and Academic Post-Colonialism, and so now Leftists can complain about the Right's "Shamelessness".  Talk about wanting to have their cake and eat it too...

 "Postcolonialism is the invention of some rich guys from India who saw that they could make a good career in top Western universities by playing on the guilt of white liberals"

-Slavoj Zizek

So "who" do you think Shamed the Right into Shamelessness, Slavoj?

Symmetry: Where the Universe and Physics (and Consciousness) Begins - The Origin of Causality (the c in e=mc^2)

Plato, "Philebus"

SOCRATES: What, then, is there in the mixture which is most precious, and which is the principal cause why such a state is universally beloved by all? When we have discovered it, we will proceed to ask whether this omnipresent nature is more akin to pleasure or to mind.

PROTARCHUS: Quite right; in that way we shall be better able to judge.

SOCRATES: And there is no difficulty in seeing the cause which renders any mixture either of the highest value or of none at all.

PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: Every man knows it.

PROTARCHUS: What?

SOCRATES: He knows that any want of measure and symmetry in any mixture whatever must always of necessity be fatal, both to the elements and to the mixture, which is then not a mixture, but only a confused medley which brings confusion on the possessor of it.

PROTARCHUS: Most true.

SOCRATES: And now the power of the good has retired into the region of the beautiful; for measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue all the world over.

PROTARCHUS: True.

SOCRATES: Also we said that truth was to form an element in the mixture.

PROTARCHUS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then, if we are not able to hunt the good with one idea only, with three we may catch our prey; Beauty, Symmetry, Truth are the three, and these taken together we may regard as the single cause of the mixture, and the mixture as being good by reason of the infusion of them.

PROTARCHUS: Quite right.

Then what does it mean to "break symmetry"? (from Google AI): 

Symmetry breaking in physics occurs when a symmetric system (ordered or law-based) transitions into a less symmetric, often more ordered, state, or when fundamental laws lack symmetry. Key mechanisms include spontaneous symmetry breaking (e.g., Higgs mechanism, phase transitions like freezing) and explicit symmetry breaking (e.g., gravity, magnetic fields).

Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking: The underlying physical laws are symmetric, but the actual state of the system is not. As explained in the Wikipedia entry on Symmetry Breaking, a common analogy is a ball on a symmetric hill falling to one side; the hill is symmetric, but the ball's final position is not.

• Higgs Mechanism: Gives mass to particles; the vacuum breaks electroweak symmetry.
• Phase Transitions: Water freezing into ice (loses continuous translation symmetry) or magnets forming, as discussed in this Reddit thread and this Quora answer.

Explicit Symmetry Breaking: The fundamental equations or Lagrangian of a system themselves lack symmetry, as detailed in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry.

Gravity: A magnetic field or gravity pointing down breaks rotational symmetry.

Commonly Broken Symmetries

• Rotational Symmetry: A system changes when rotated (e.g., a stick buckling), noted in this Youtube video.
• Gauge Symmetry: Fundamental symmetries of nature that, when broken, allow particles to acquire mass, explains the Department of Energy.
• Parity (P-Symmetry): Left/right reflection symmetry, broken in weak interactions.

Examples in Physics

• Magnetism: Atoms align in one direction below the Curie temperature, as mentioned on Quora.
• Cosmology: The inflationary field decay after the Big Bang.
• Fluid Dynamics: Water flowing from a tap forming distinct, non-circular shapes as shown by Sabine Hossenfelder.

As highlighted by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, these concepts are foundational to understanding the diverse structures in the universe, as a perfectly symmetric universe would be uniform, massless, and essentially featureless.

Space Symmetry Conserves Momentum:Time Symmetry Conserves Energy:Space:Time

from Google AI:

Energy is fundamentally divided into kinetic (motion) and potential (stored) types, taking forms like mechanical, thermal, electrical, radiant, and nuclear. Potential energy includes gravitational, elastic, and chemical forms, while kinetic includes motion, sound, and electromagnetic waves. Energy converts between these types, obeying conservation laws.

Primary Types of Energy

Potential Energy (Stored Energy)- Time:

• Gravitational: Stored based on an object's position, such as a ball at the top of a hill or water in a dam.
• Chemical: Energy stored in molecular bonds, such as in food, gasoline, or batteries.
• Elastic: Stored by stretching or compressing, like in a rubber band or spring.
• Nuclear: Energy stored in the nucleus of an atom.

Kinetic Energy (Energy of Motion) - Space:

• Motion/Mechanical: Energy of moving objects, such as a car driving or wind.
• Thermal (Heat): The movement of atoms and molecules within substances.
• Radiant (Electromagnetic): Energy traveling in waves, such as light, X-rays, and radio waves.
• Sound: Movement of energy through substances in longitudinal waves.
• Electrical: The movement of electrons.

Momentum and Related Energy Concepts

• Momentum: While not a type of energy, momentum (p=mv) is directly related to kinetic energy (Ek=p^2/2m), representing the "quantity of motion" in an object.
• Mechanical Energy: The sum of an object's potential and kinetic energy.
• Internal Energy: The total energy contained within a thermodynamic system, often the sum of microscopic potential and kinetic energies.
• Rest Energy: The energy associated with an object's rest mass, described by E=mc^2

Forms of Energy Conversion

Energy is rarely found in only one form and frequently converts between potential and kinetic. For example, a falling ball converts potential energy into kinetic energy. Chemical energy in fuel is converted into thermal and kinetic energy to propel a car.

Celebrating St. George In London and the Colonies

from the Royal Society:

Prior to the formation of The Royal Society of St. George in 1894 and before the American Revolution, Societies of St. George had been founded in the then North American Colonies for the relief of British immigrants and to give them general assistance in the new country. Today there are societies all around the world branching from the historical legacy of St. George, the Patron Saint of England.

The earliest branches of which there are any records are those of New York (1770), Philadelphia (1772) and Charlestown (1773). Subsequently branches were formed in all the great cities of the North American continent and celebrations were always held on St. George's Day. Initially following the Revolutionary War the activities of the societies diminished, but within 20 years the strongest societies regained their footing as we can see with Philadelphia where they filed a legal constitution in 1797. At the time of the War of Independence many Loyalists moved to Canada and founded similar societies in Halifax (1786) and other cities.

In 1769 St. George was used as the patron saint for the building of the first Methodist church in America in Philadelphia. In the 1800's several churches were erected in the United States bearing St. George as their defender including the St. George's Cathedral in Philadelphia.

In the 1920's the Society of the Friends of St George's and Descendants of the Knights of the Garter, a constituent group of the Foundation of the College of St George, Windsor Castle was established.

Shortly thereafter, a separate Philadelphia-based group, the Society of Descendants of Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, was founded in 1929 according to the group, the Hereditary Society Blue Book and the Hereditary Society Community of the United States of America

The Kingsessing Morris Men

The Vacuum of Space is Full of Virtual Particles

...and they are REAL!

Virtual Aether

What was once Old has become New again!

Robert Green on Human Nature and the Games of Power

Appearance can be Power, But "leverage" is ACTUAL Power.  Power is a Multi-Player Game of Getting people in your Side (RICE).  People are NVS.  Self-Deprecating Humour can be a counter to NV.

Trump is a Master of Law #6: Court Attention at All Cost, but he's not a "Big Picture" guy.

Powerless people become passive-aggressive and play "Negative" power games.

Nietzsche, "Beyond Good & Evil" (#36)

If we assume that nothing is "given" as real other than our world of desires and passions and that we cannot access from above or below any "reality" other than the direct reality of our drives - for thinking is only a relationship of these drives to each other -: are we not allowed to make the attempt and to ask the question whether this given is not a sufficient basis also for understanding the so-called mechanical (or "material") world on the basis of things like this given. I don’t mean to understand it as an illusion, an "appearance," an "idea" (in the sense of Berkeley6 and Schopenhauer), but as having the same degree of reality as our affects themselves have - as a more primitive form of the world of affects in which everything is still combined in a powerful unity, something which then branches off and develops in the organic process (also, as is reasonable, gets softer and weaker -), as a form of instinctual life in which the collective organic functions, along with self-regulation, assimilation, nourishment, excretion, and metabolism, are still synthetically bound up with one another - as an early form of life? In the end making this attempt is not only permitted but is also demanded by the conscience of the method. Not to assume various forms of causality as long as the attempt to manage with a single one has been pushed to its furthest limit (- all the way to nonsense, if I may say so): that is one moral of the method which people nowadays may not evade; - as a mathematician would say, it is a consequence "of its definition." In the end the question is whether we acknowledge the will as something really efficient, whether we believe in the causal properties of the will. If we do - and basically our faith in this is simply our faith in causality itself - then we must make the attempt to set up hypothetically the causality of the will as the single causality. Of course, "will" can work only on "will" - and not on "stuff" (not, for example, on "nerves"-). Briefly put, we must venture the hypothesis whether in general, wherever we recognize "effects," will is not working on will - and whether every mechanical event, to the extent that a force is active in it, is not force of will, an effect of the will. - Suppose finally that we were to succeed in explaining our entire instinctual life as a development and branching off of a single fundamental form of the will - that is, of the will to power, as my principle asserts - and suppose we could trace back all organic functions to this will to power and also locate in it the solution to the problem of reproduction and nourishment - that is one problem - then in so doing we would have earned the right to designate all efficient force unambiguously as will to power. Seen from inside, the world defined and described according to its "intelligible character" would be simply "will to power" and nothing else.-

6. . . . Berkeley : George Berkeley (1685-1753), Irish bishop and philosopher

.

Further Entrenching Technofeudalism by Psychedelically Modifying the Western Episteme...

The Never Ending Re-Cycling of Bad Ideas...

The Platonic Realm of 'Forms'...

Chris Reynolds, MD, "Engram as a Pattern of Cortical Attractors"

Memory, Loop Geometry, and the Shape of Conscious Thought

Figure 1 — Temporal Sculpting of Attractors: Recursive loops reshape the cortical probability landscape over time. Through repeated cycles of prediction and reinforcement, shallow probability fields evolve into deep, stable attractor basins — forming the building blocks of long-term memory and conscious recall.

I. Introduction: Memory Isn’t a File — It’s a Shape in Time

What if memories aren’t stored, but sculpted? Not filed away like a photograph, but carved into the dynamic folds of brain activity — shapes in a probability landscape that emerge, deform, and reappear with each act of remembering.

In traditional neuroscience, memory has long been associated with the elusive concept of the engram — a physical trace of learning somewhere in the brain. But as our understanding deepens, the idea of a static trace becomes less satisfying. In its place, new models — like the Probability Clock theory — suggest that memory is not a place, but a pattern.

And not just any pattern. An engram, in this view, is a constellation of attractors, each shaped by recursive loops of brain activity flowing through the Synaptic Probability Field of the Cortex (SPFC).

II. What Is an Engram, Really?

The term engram was first proposed by Richard Semon in the early 20th century, describing a hypothetical physical change in the brain that encodes memory. Later, researchers like Karl Lashley and Wilder Penfield searched for it — unsuccessfully, in the form of discrete “memory centers.”

Today, we understand that memories are distributed. They don’t reside in one place, but in networks of neurons that fire together when an experience is recalled. Optogenetics has shown that activating certain neural assemblies can evoke learned behaviors in mice. That’s as close as we’ve gotten to “seeing” an engram.

But even this modern view misses something. If memories can shift, update, fade, and return altered — how can they be fixed entities?

III. Attractors: The Brain’s Hidden Geometry

In complex systems like the brain, an attractor is a stable configuration that neural activity tends to fall into — like a groove in the brain’s activity landscape. But these grooves aren’t fixed. They can deepen with reinforcement or fade with disuse, and they aren’t purely spatial — they’re spatiotemporal, shaped through recursive loops.

Figure 2 — Engram as a Pattern of Attractors: In the SPFC, attractor basins represent neural configurations that are recursively reinforced. A memory, or engram, is composed of multiple attractors forming a stable geometric pattern in probability space.

IV. The Synaptic Probability Field of the Cortex (SPFC)

The SPFC is a conceptual model: a dynamic probability landscape representing the readiness of neurons to fire together. Recursive reinforcement from loops like emotion, attention, and context modulates this field.

In PC theory, reinforcement is not static — it’s temporal sculpting. Time isn’t a backdrop. It’s the very medium that gives attractors their structure and durability.

Figure 3 — Synaptic Probability Field of the Cortex: This stylized “bubble wrap” landscape shows how some synaptic sites are more likely to activate than others. Depressions in the surface represent attractors forming under recursive reinforcement. Over time, this probability field evolves to stabilize patterns of memory and cognition.

V. Loop Geometry: How Memory Takes Shape

Here’s the key: recursive loops sculpt the shape of the SPFC over time.

TAPP, MAPP, and recursive attractor evolutions (rAEs) don’t merely route data — they reshape the terrain.

Figure 4 — Recursive Loop Pathways: Recursive cycles deepen attractor basins by reinforcing activation patterns.

VI. Engrams as Topological Objects

If attractors have shape, then engrams are topologies — they are structures, not snapshots. Each engram reflects not just spatial distribution, but recursive time evolution.

Figure 5 — Stable Engram in the SPFC: Multiple attractors distributed across the SPFC form the core of a stable memory trace.

Sidebar — Deepening the Basin: How Emotion Shapes Memory

Emotionally intense moments reinforce attractors. Neuromodulators deepen synaptic grooves. These emotionally-weighted loops are replayed more frequently — during sleep, reflection, or trauma — embedding them deeper in the SPFC.

VII. Implications: Memory as Momentum

We often think of memory as something static — like a file we “open” when needed. But in the Probability Clock (PC) model, memory is more like momentum moving through time. It’s not just stored information; it’s a pattern of neural activity that continues to loop, evolve, and shape future thought.

Each memory is a trajectory, not a location. It’s built through recursive loops that revisit and reinforce certain attractors — regions in the brain’s probability landscape where patterns of activity tend to settle. These attractors become more stable the more often they’re used.

Trauma: Hyper-Stabilized Attractors. Trauma doesn’t just “get stored” in the brain — it gets looped into. It becomes a set of deep attractor basins that are revisited repeatedly, sometimes involuntarily. These attractors are emotionally weighted and so stable that even small cues can pull the brain back into that pattern — like falling into a groove that’s been worn too deep.

Therapy: Perturbing the Loop. Therapeutic interventions work not by erasing memories, but by perturbing those deep attractors — introducing new emotional context, new attention patterns, or alternate interpretations. This weakens the old loop and allows new ones to form. Therapy doesn’t “fix” memory — it changes its momentum. It redirects the flow of recursive activity toward more adaptive paths.

AI: What It’s Missing. Current artificial intelligence systems don’t operate with recursive momentum. They store information as static parameters — not as attractor patterns that loop, stabilize, and evolve. That’s why AI can “remember” facts but doesn’t truly “relive” them. If future AI were built with recursive loop structures like those found in the brain — dynamic attractors in time — it could begin to develop experiential memory, where past events shape future thinking through active re-entry and emotional weighting.

Why Memory Feels Like Something. In this model, memory isn’t accessed — it’s relived. You don’t just “look up” the past. Your brain flows back into a familiar shape. That recursive loop is what gives memory its qualia — the feel of remembering.

VIII. Conclusion: The Shape of Remembering

To truly understand memory — and maybe even consciousness — we must think topologically. You don’t just recall a moment. You revisit a loop. You reshape the basin. You carve your mind forward in time. Consciousness, in this view, is recursive attractor geometry in motion.