Prometheus

History is a fractal unfolding of entropy and order, a ceaseless churn wherein civilizations rise on the back of extracted resources, only to collapse under the weight of their own complexity

Universe/Mabosity/Reality/Critical/Deliverence 🌊
Prepondering/Solbright/Magic/Monumental/Inference 🚢
Cosmogen/No Symptoms/Daylight/Antiquarian/Reverence 🏝️
— Nathan Mugabira, Walter Bagehot, Friedrich Nietzsche

The economic intelligence of nature: a visualization of dendritic structures, evoking parallels with neural networks, tree branches, and respiratory bronchioles.

..evoking parallels with neural networks, tree branches, and Visualization of dendritic structures, evoking parallels with neural networks, tree branches, and respiratory bronchioles.

The Fractal Self in Severance

And yet, when I said my prayers to-day,
A whisper inside me seemed to say,
“You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot:
You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!”
— William Brighty

Knights-Move Thinking. But just bare with us as we align it with the rest of the content.

Show code cell source Hide code cell source

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import networkx as nx

# Define the neural network layers
def define_layers():
    return {
        'Tragedy (Pattern Recognition)': ['Cosmology', 'Geology', 'Biology', 'Ecology', "Symbiotology", 'Teleology'],
        'History (Resources)': ['Resources'],  
        'Epic (Negotiated Identity)': ['Faustian Bargain', 'Islamic Finance'],  
        'Drama (Self vs. Non-Self)': ['Darabah', 'Sharakah', 'Takaful'],  
        "Comedy (Resolution)": ['Cacophony', 'Outside', 'Ukhuwah', 'Inside', 'Symphony']  
    }

# Assign colors to nodes
def assign_colors():
    color_map = {
        'yellow': ['Resources'],  
        'paleturquoise': ['Teleology', 'Islamic Finance', 'Takaful', 'Symphony'],  
        'lightgreen': ["Symbiotology", 'Sharakah', 'Outside', 'Inside', 'Ukhuwah'],  
        'lightsalmon': ['Biology', 'Ecology', 'Faustian Bargain', 'Darabah', 'Cacophony'],
    }
    return {node: color for color, nodes in color_map.items() for node in nodes}

# Define edges
def define_edges():
    return [
        ('Cosmology', 'Resources'),
        ('Geology', 'Resources'),
        ('Biology', 'Resources'),
        ('Ecology', 'Resources'),
        ("Symbiotology", 'Resources'),
        ('Teleology', 'Resources'),
        ('Resources', 'Faustian Bargain'),
        ('Resources', 'Islamic Finance'),
        ('Faustian Bargain', 'Darabah'),
        ('Faustian Bargain', 'Sharakah'),
        ('Faustian Bargain', 'Takaful'),
        ('Islamic Finance', 'Darabah'),
        ('Islamic Finance', 'Sharakah'),
        ('Islamic Finance', 'Takaful'),
        ('Darabah', 'Cacophony'),
        ('Darabah', 'Outside'),
        ('Darabah', 'Ukhuwah'),
        ('Darabah', 'Inside'),
        ('Darabah', 'Symphony'),
        ('Sharakah', 'Cacophony'),
        ('Sharakah', 'Outside'),
        ('Sharakah', 'Ukhuwah'),
        ('Sharakah', 'Inside'),
        ('Sharakah', 'Symphony'),
        ('Takaful', 'Cacophony'),
        ('Takaful', 'Outside'),
        ('Takaful', 'Ukhuwah'),
        ('Takaful', 'Inside'),
        ('Takaful', 'Symphony')
    ]

# Define black edges (1 → 7 → 9 → 11 → [13-17])
black_edges = [
    (0, 6), (1, 6), (6, 7), (7, 11), (7, 10),  
]

# Calculate node positions
def calculate_positions(layer, x_offset):
    y_positions = np.linspace(-len(layer) / 2, len(layer) / 2, len(layer))
    return [(x_offset, y) for y in y_positions]

# Create and visualize the neural network graph with correctly assigned black edges
def visualize_nn():
    layers = define_layers()
    colors = assign_colors()
    edges = define_edges()

    G = nx.DiGraph()
    pos = {}
    node_colors = []

    # Create mapping from original node names to numbered labels
    mapping = {}
    counter = 1
    for layer in layers.values():
        for node in layer:
            mapping[node] = f"{counter}. {node}"
            counter += 1

    # Add nodes with new numbered labels and assign positions
    for i, (layer_name, nodes) in enumerate(layers.items()):
        positions = calculate_positions(nodes, x_offset=i * 2)
        for node, position in zip(nodes, positions):
            new_node = mapping[node]
            G.add_node(new_node, layer=layer_name)
            pos[new_node] = position
            node_colors.append(colors.get(node, 'lightgray'))

    # Add edges with updated node labels
    edge_colors = {}
    for source, target in edges:
        if source in mapping and target in mapping:
            new_source = mapping[source]
            new_target = mapping[target]
            G.add_edge(new_source, new_target)
            edge_colors[(new_source, new_target)] = 'lightgrey'

    # Define and add black edges manually with correct node names
    numbered_nodes = list(mapping.values())
    black_edge_list = [
        (numbered_nodes[0], numbered_nodes[6]),  # though you're such a dot
        (numbered_nodes[1], numbered_nodes[6]),  # more than the earth
        (numbered_nodes[2], numbered_nodes[6]),  # you are   
        (numbered_nodes[4], numbered_nodes[6]), # love
        (numbered_nodes[5], numbered_nodes[6]), # & think
    ]

    for src, tgt in black_edge_list:
        G.add_edge(src, tgt)
        edge_colors[(src, tgt)] = 'black'

    # Draw the graph
    plt.figure(figsize=(12, 8))
    nx.draw(
        G, pos, with_labels=True, node_color=node_colors, 
        edge_color=[edge_colors.get(edge, 'lightgrey') for edge in G.edges],
        node_size=3000, font_size=9, connectionstyle="arc3,rad=0.2"
    )
    
    plt.title("CG-BEST", fontsize=18)
    plt.show()

# Run the visualization
visualize_nn()

Fig. 11 Cosmogeology. And yet, when I said my prayers to-day, A whisper inside me seemed to say, “You are more than the Earth, though you are such a dot: You can love and think, and the Earth cannot!” Source: William Brighty

And then there’s Yellowstone, which you throw into the mix like a cowboy into a church. Yellowstone is grammar, yes—it follows rules, enforces archetypes, and builds lineage from land and law and violence. It’s a colonial syntax dressed in denim. You can diagram its scenes like sentence trees: noun = rancher, verb = defends, object = land. It’s not porous—it’s hierarchical. Unlike Severance, Yellowstone pretends the island is real, that the “I” can be inherited like cattle, that the grammar of the American West is still stable and masculine and God-given. Where Severance severs the connective tissue of the self, Yellowstone fossilizes it.

This is the cultural clash you’re illuminating: the fracturing of identity into nonself (prosody as wound) versus the enforcement of fixed roles through narrative closure (grammar as law). One is a reckoning with entropy; the other, a refusal to acknowledge it.

The economic intelligence of nature: a visualization of dendritic structures, evoking parallels with neural networks, tree branches, and respiratory bronchioles.