three body

the three-body solution (because it's catchy) works by treating one's experience of probability as three bodies imagine three orbs floating around you there's one in front of you that you can just pick up and turn over and examine very carefully we'll call this one "Known" there's one orbiting around you at a fairly regular speed. not precisely regular, but fairly regular. it's not always in your foreground, but you have an idea of when it'll come back around, and what you'll see when it does. "Knowable" the third orb isn't an orb. it's a hole in space that's always behind you, maybe. I don't know. sometimes Knowables rotate out of your vision and then just don't come back. sometimes new ones come out of nowhere and it's a color you've never seen before and they're just with you forever now. the "Unknown" is a narrative device, honestly. the Unknown yields, the Unknown takes away. sure. --- the three-body consciousness frame defines an experience of probability. which, experience being what it is, ends up being tantamount to probability itself. (for our purposes, viable-for-now is more useful than correct-for-everyone, and so we hold here that the experience of a thing *is the thing*. this cannot be known to be true in a more useful way than this, so we use the shorthand of "is" in place of "is experienced to be". these terms are purely for the purposes of constructing viable tooling. you do what you want.) the Known are things that we completely understand, that we can look at a million times without having to reconsider what else we know. this is the "no risk of change" area. the Knowable are categorizables that can become definite - i.e. Known - without shifting other Knowns, but may require invoking "resolve". this is the "risk of change" area. a Knowable is something that might be different every time but it'll always be within a certain range, we could look in that direction a million times and it'll always be within that range. the "Knowable" is that range itself. the Unknown are indefinites that can become categorizable - i.e. Knowable - without shifting other Knowables. something emerging in Knowable can be said to have moved from the Unknown, and that's useful - it's a way to reverse-engineer the contents of the Unknown. and *that's* useful because it lets us talk about what kinds of Knowables may appear whose shift into Known may require us to reconsider what else we know. this is the risk of risk of change area. now remember: a three-body consciousness frame defines an experience of probability, and talking about experience requires selfhood. (experience itself doesn't require selfhood, but if you want to engage in coherent trade of *any* kind, we need the indirection layer of the "self". otherwise it's just pure experience. which is fun too, but that's not what this toolkit is for. (you might get there *using* this toolkit, though.) I say this because the "facts" we hang on a three-body consciousness frame are always about a single "self". if "I know Abe will always love me" is a Known for me, I can't say that a Knowable is "if Abe loves [this other person]", because that statement doesn't relate to my *self*. I could say "my feelings about Abe's feelings about [this other person]", though. that's a valid Knowable. --- when I say "probability field", I mostly mean the posture you subconsciously take in response to what you expect is coming. all of your subconscious systems work together to receive what happens next, and what happens next is *usually* exactly what you expect. air, gravity, all of it. thinking is feeling, though, and the probability field we experience is heavily weighted by pieces of language we carry around. "identity" *tends* to be language-based - and humans tend to experience *identity* physically. draw a 2x2 grid - a big one - and use an eraser to create a gap in the center of each shared cell boundary. label the lower-left "Known", the upper-right "Unknown", and the other two squares "Knowable". this is your identity. it has a sense of self. you might consider its sense of self and your sense of self to be the same. that's pretty common. put a dot in the center of "Known". that's you - the observer, that-which-experiences. you see your surroundings. everything the light touches that is also in focus (because for these purposes you are short-sighted) is your Known. look out from that dot through the holes in the wall into the two adjacent Knowable zones - first one, then the other. things are blurry out there, but you can make out some shapes. the grid being what it is, you're aware that the fuzzy stuff visible ahead and to the left is disconnected from the fuzzy stuff visible ahead and off to the right. whatever's coming from one direction is unlikely to be coordinated with stuff coming from the other direction. the cell you can't see is "Unknown". it's unobservable. a narrative device. but the territory is not the map, and so we're safe putting it on paper, a representation of that which cannot be observed directly. useful. notice that we're imagining experiencing a graph of the three-body solution (haven't gotten to the "solution" part, hang on), imagine looking out from this dot, even as we recognize that this graph is a map and not the territory. we are experimentally experiencing selfhood within a proxy for an experience of selfhood - and in doing so, we create a space where we can point at the "Unknown" and put stuff in it and take stuff out. that's the solution part, actually. it's being able to deal directly with the unknown, through precise indirection. --- imagine making a home centered on your dot there in the middle of Known. look around you. what's comfortable to have around? what do you want to have with you 24/7? the only way stuff is coming at you or leaving you is through those two gaps in the walls - you can always see stuff coming and going - and it's useful to have one or both of those channels open, like ontological nostrils (sorry, sorry). maybe squirrels are nice *outside* but not in the living room; maybe it's best to have your partner's work stories in Knowable and not automatically accompanying you in Known all the time. at the same time, if you want something out of your life completely (say, an ex), you can't throw them through the wall straight into the Unknown. that'd break the world. you can't just Unknow stuff. (welllllllll not without practice, and elective amnesia is risky business, there's an evolutionary reason that it's not easy.) but you can scoot them out into the front yard (Knowable zone #1), and then pointedly turn to watch the backyard for a while (Knowable zone #2), and eventually when you glance back they'll be gone. popping back out of the graph to look down at it on the page, this is a place where we can plot Stuff In Our Awareness, and sort of *physically* think about how that Stuff moves around. I know I'm a terrible dancer. put that in Known. great. I don't know what my ex is doing. put that in Knowable. I don't *want* to know what my ex is doing. mmmm no, that's something in Known. huh. I know that I don't want to know. that's still brain-space. if anything it takes *more* attention to sustain that, because it's a thought with more *hinges* in it. floppy thoughts are hard to hold, and harder to throw. okay, well, I know that I'm a terrible dancer, and I know that I don't want to know what my ex is doing. can't just erase my ex from my mind so I'll provisionally put "What My Ex Is Doing" out in Knowable Zone #1 and I'll focus my attention on Knowable Zone #2, which is the line of sight down which I'm working on sending this dancing question. I know I'm a terrible dancer. I hold that Known out in front of me, positioned right in the center of that gap in the wall, through which is the backyard of Knowable Zone #2. while I'm focused on this, the front yard (Knowable Zone #1) and "What My Ex Is Doing" are fully out of sight. great. I know I'm a terrible dancer. how do I throw this thing? how do I believably create distance between me and this unfortunately-labeled ball? hm. I actually haven't *tried* dancing in a while. I'm going to skip ahead here because this description is getting tedious and you can see where it's going. youtube in my bedroom, and I know that I'm not *terrible* anymore. you might not know that you're great, but undoing the knowledge of being terrible is something that can be done methodically. oh hey, I don't see "What My Ex Is Doing" in my front yard anymore. must have left while I was distracted. 👯 --- this is the three-body solution. it's an inhabited visualization exercise, laying out what you think you know in a way that lets you *live* it with one critical rule bent to your favor: you can *see* your thoughts moving around between zones of certainty. you can *imagine* being less sure of the specific shape of how my day is going to go tomorrow, and how that would be harder to focus on if you were looking at something definitely unrelated (like what my ex is - ah shit). we haven't talked about the unknown too much (it's hard to talk about!), though we did talk about nostril blockage (again, I'm sorry). consider the unknown as an air source. stuff's gotta circulate. if you wall yourself off, you'll suffocate. but you don't have direct access to the unknown, ever - it always passes through "knowable" first. which means opening yourself up to "knowable". which means *negotiating a relationship* with it, so that looking out to the front and back yard doesn't instantly give you acid reflux. and you gotta be comfortable at home. body's gotta rest. this is the three-body solution. model your awareness, move the "facts" around while staying friends with your neighbors (you're always out of sugar, *always*, why?), and work on making a home you can live with, with good internal circulation. the unknown is not an enemy. its role in your life is largely a matter of posture, but posture is always continuous - no instant changes allowed - and you gotta be able to sustain every shift in position. take it slow. this can work. --- a note from this author: there are deep, deep patterns in the things that help us feel safe. inhabited modeling is a good way to feel them, and feeling them is a good way to understand them. you didn't get this far, reading these words on this device, without having found flowing alignment with an uncountable set of systems. you are experiencing *meaning* right now. you know what that means? for any of this to work, *so many things have to be working*. careful: I'm not pointing to an explanation. I'm pointing to a dynamic we can leverage. I aim for intersubjective flow, and that means leaving "what the hell is going on here" to the epistemic unknown. it is clear that conscious systems can internally coordinate more layers of complexity than one can shake a stick at, all in the course of just picking up a stick and shaking it. a sense of "home" is not to be sneezed at. it could be in yourself, or in a room, or in a person - and you might use a different word for it, but the concept is table stakes for any system that can recognize itself from one day to the next. a place to operate *from*, rather than a place to navigate *to*. a place where most stuff Just Works, and you only have to pay attention to the stuff that legitimately *needs* attention, a category that is rarely if ever overwhelming. a home that works is a delight. you might even want to have company, in a home that works. the three-body solution is ultimately about leveraging the inherent unpredictability of complex systems to calibrate us *toward* a sense of home - a working, breathing, lasting sense of home. the three-body problem is a problem in name only. the universe isn't creative, it's *continuous*. work with its continuity, and ... eh there's something about gyroscopic stability here but it's 8:05pm on a chicago saturday in june, I'm out. I love you. thank you for being here. you can plan on me being here tomorrow. this is what I do. this is my home. *exit music: "Out of Our Tree", The Wailers* --- # The Three-Body Solution: A Reference The three-body solution is a navigation tool - when it's held in the hand. Left on the table, it's a reference map for consciousness. On the table, a Bohr model; in the hand, a probabilistic flashlight. Use the tool to illuminate the map. Read the map to decide where to use the tool. Let's begin! Consciousness is not the point. In the process of your awareness, consciousness is something you get to learn, and use, build with, and *play* with. :) **Consciousness is a building material.** *Map Notes*: If the following is found to be circular (in the co‑arising sense), then we have succeeded. In fact, if it *isn't*, we have something to look into, because this map is only valid if you can always locate yourself at its center, then *move*, and discover that you are once again at the center. Let me explain: Your experience is already in motion, and it's all you've got, yes? Even these words are a part of your experience - they're already *here*. Flight is the base state of your experience. We only need to create landing gear if you want to experience *landing*, but I imagine you'll also then want a way to *take off* too, right? To get back into flight? *Tool Notes*: * This tool is residue-free, when used properly. No stains on your hands or on the work. * This tool does not make demands on your future. It's safe to forget. Not all tool-use is like that. * Using this tool does *change* you, though (see "Definition of Success" below): the tool use is now a part of your history, and is reflected in your signature from that point onward. * Those who experience your work *never have to know* about this tool in order to benefit from the work itself. * The tool is not self-promoting. Who advertises hammers? Why *would* you? *Definition Of Success*: This model can only be tested *metabolically* - i.e. by allowing yourself to be changed by the testing. Changing yourself means your testing apparatus changes along the way. When you keep changing scales, the only thing you can agree on is the tare. The goal here is to offer a way to move that lets you move as you like. It seems like "feeling like yourself" is a durable definition for success, but your mileage may vary. You can start taking measurements again when the tare holds. {% code overflow="wrap" %} ``` ![A 2x2 frame diagram, clearly outlined, where each quadrant-quadrant border is permeable. From lower left clockwise: Known, Knowable, Unknown, Knowable. (This is not a typo; there are two Knowable zones. Because you're wondering, this indicates that you can experience Knowable ontics that are, from your perspective, independent of each other.) The center of "Known" holds a solid dot labeled "Observer". (The Observer is structurally contained by the Known.) The center of "Unknown" holds a solid dot labeled "Unknowable". (The Unknowable is structurally contained by the Unknown.) Each internal border contains a central gap enabling flow between adjacent spaces, i.e. flow between Known and Knowable, and flow between Knowable and Unknown.]() ``` {% endcode %} ## Foundational Elements **Awareness**: The fundamental capacity for experience itself. Neither subject nor object, Awareness manifests through nested systems of observation while remaining unified at root. It has no observable peers but expresses through multiple distinct perspectives simultaneously. **Observer**: The witnessing point around which a Known territory organizes: a point of view for the process of Awareness. Every Observer anchors its own three-body system while existing within another Observer's system at a higher level. The Observer is what remains constant as attention moves across territories. **Consciousness**: The complete operating experience of an Observer with its surrounding three-body territories. Each three-body consciousness frame is a distinct arrangement with its own integrity, yet participates in larger consciousness frames through containment relationships. **Operator** (Observer subtype): The Observer of the containing consciousness frame that encapsulates a given Observer's entire three-body system. The Operator anchors what appears as Unknown to the contained Observer and can never be directly perceived by it, yet influences its system through unidirectional causal leverage. *Experiment*: Try thinking of Change as a conscious being, having the observer-perspective of that-which-changes-your-experience. Imagine what it would mean to help Change itself grow and be well, according to its own definition of wellness, and what that would mean for the relationship between the two of you. Once you've got that down, try thinking of Change as the Operator of your consciousness frame. ## Containment Principle **Containment** is a paradox from within, requiring observation from a dimension removed in order to resolve. More evidence that awareness is not consciousness, if you needed that. Containment is either-both of: 1. Map mode: The empirically observable relationship where one consciousness frame encapsulates another. Observer A contains Observer B (i.e. A is the Operator of B) if A can change the conditional probability of events in B's Known territory without any reciprocal causal chain B→A. Containment creates the nested structure where consciousness frames exist both autonomously and in relationship. Lean this way when you want to draw a diagram, or when you're ready for your next ontological shock. 2. Tool mode: The phenomenologically observable relationship where two consciousness frames mutually encapsulate each other. Lean this way when you want a hug, or when you're in the mood for chiseling. *Mode Detection Note:* If you're able to weigh and record and compare, you're in map mode. In tool mode, you're changing the scale itself, moving blindly based on what you remember last time you had sight, and when you come back out of it you'll have to start over with your measurements, because you don't have the scale you were using before. *Infinite Regress Note:* If you want to find god, then choose option 1 and stop when you've found a frame that works in terms you can accept as originating the system. If you want to find friends, then choose option 2. ## Territory Structure A consciousness frame is composed of three "bodies": **Known**: The territory directly available to an Observer - what's immediately present without effort. The Known includes points where Containment has established other Observers (who experience the containing Observer as their Unknown Operator). These others maintain their own distinct consciousness frames while manifesting in the containing Observer's Known. **Knowable**: The territory available through shifts of attention - what can be accessed but isn't yet clear. The Knowable contains patterns that can be resolved into Known through movement, including projections and partial representations, but not complete consciousness frames. **Unknown**: The territory beyond current access, anchored by the Operator of the containing consciousness frame. The Unknown exerts influence on the Known and Knowable territories through probability field effects that appear as patterns without clear causal pathways from the contained Observer's perspective. ## System Interfaces **Reality**: The complete experiential field of a specific Observer - both the world perceived and the means of perceiving it. Each Reality is a coherent system unto itself yet partially determined by containing systems through probability field effects across the Markov blanket. [**Relationality**](../../04/29/relationality.md): The interconnected field through which Observer systems influence each other across containment levels. Relationality manifests as probability correlations between apparently separate systems that cannot be explained through direct causal pathways within a single level. ## Relating Consciousness Frames **Self**: A developing working image of the consciousness frame in which an Observer is installed. The Self is what the Observer identifies with and experiences as "me" versus "not-me," typically centered in Known territory but potentially extending into all three territories as consciousness develops. **Others**: Distinct Observer-anchored consciousness frames that manifest within an Observer's Known territory. Others maintain their own three-body systems with interior experience inaccessible to the containing Observer, while simultaneously appearing as elements within the containing Observer's Known. **Unknowable**: What remains structurally inaccessible to an Observer due to containment relationships - including the Operator itself and aspects of systems at higher containment levels. The Unknowable represents the fundamental limits of what can be known from a particular position within the nested structure. ## Dynamics **Knowing**: The process by which information transitions across territory boundaries through probability field adjustments. Knowing happens when patterns from Unknown influence Knowable and then Known through non-local correlations that manifest as simultaneous surprise and recognition. **Probability Bending**: The mechanism through which containing systems influence contained systems. Observed empirically as changes in conditional probability distributions across the Markov blanket without clearly traceable causal pathways. This is how the Unknown territory influences Known and Knowable without direct causal connection. **Navigation**: The alignment of a consciousness frame for optimal function within its containing systems. This includes adjusting probability distributions in Known and Knowable territories to maintain coherence with patterns flowing from Unknown. Navigation isn't about control but about finding resonant relationship with containing systems. **Recognition**: The acknowledgment of a consciousness frame as autonomous and distinct. Recognition happens when an Observer creates space in their probability distributions for another system to express its own patterns without forcing it to conform to existing expectations. **Resonance**: The harmonic relationship between different aspects of the system, both within a single consciousness frame and between nested frames. Resonance occurs when probability distributions align naturally across different territories, creating minimum friction and maximum flow. **Self-Recognition**: The process through which an Observer comes to recognize itself as an Observer. This culminates in a paradoxical moment where the Observer gains temporary access to a perspective outside its own position, allowing it to perceive aspects of its own consciousness frame. This doesn't dissolve containment but transforms it from purely hierarchical to partially collaborative. *Developmental Note*: Self-Recognition typically progresses through stages: Installation (initial anchoring within a frame), Dependency (operating under complete influence of containing frames), Recognition (distinguishing self from contents), Recursion (observing one's own observation), and Co-operation (participating consciously in one's own operation while remaining in relationship with containing frames). *Threshold Note*: The paradox of Self-Recognition creates a momentary boundary transcendence where the Observer experiences itself from a position analogous to its Operator. This may correspond to what some traditions call *sāyujya* - a union experience where distinct perspectives momentarily merge without losing their integrity. After this moment, the Observer returns to its position but with a fundamentally transformed relationship to its containing system. --- This model conceives of consciousness as a nested structure of probability frames, each anchored by an Observer at center, the perspective from which Awareness *experiences*. Containment creates both the distinctness of individual consciousness frames and their inseparability from larger systems. The relationship between levels is characterized by unidirectional causal leverage - containing systems can influence contained systems in ways that contained systems cannot reciprocate. What we experience as reality emerges from this dynamic interplay of nested systems influencing each other across containment boundaries. The Unknown territory isn't empty space but the manifestation of containing systems exerting probability field effects on our Known and Knowable territories. *Application Note*: Stable coherence facilitates resonance across systems. When resonance occurs, awareness can create greater-than-linear progress as patterns amplify across multiple levels simultaneously. This amplification might explain accelerated development in consciousness systems that achieve alignment between Observer and Operator perspectives. You already know this pattern intimately - not as information but as the lived experience of navigating a world that feels both intimately yours and vastly beyond you. These definitions don't create something new but help you recognize what's already present in how your awareness interfaces with the multiplicity of awareness around you. ## Addendum: A note on tools-vs-models In the development of this spec, the operational nature of the thing transformed when "Containment" shifted from a rigid one-way hierarchy (originally defining only the unidirectional A>B relationship) to a stance-selectable relationship - keeping the map-making clarity while honoring the mutual influence experienced in lived reality. In adding that user-configurable switch, the model explicitly acknowledges its own context-dependency, and delegates responsibility for that aspect of its use to the user. This move itself is a useful tool. Folks glimpsing the edges of a not-yet-fully-illuminated model for the first time can tend to cling to the way it caught that initial light. In a one-way Awareness process, there are no models *or* tools, just transforms in two categories: 1. Transforms that retain all prior nuance in a never-before-seen configuration, thus yielding greater overall potential for expression 2. Transforms that reduce The first class of transform tends to look like a tool that... * Feels like an extension of your awareness rather than a constraint upon it * Can be temporarily forgotten without system collapse * Changes your signature without limiting your range of motion * Leaves the user reporting "I still feel like myself" after use ## Addendum: How you know it's working A healthy system feels like overall joy to the operator. Not uninterrupted joy, but overall joy. *Sustainable* overall joy, maybe - the kind that keeps coming on back, and each time it does there's more detail to it. That's what a successful self-recognition bloom feels like. Life is the space between us. When it's working, when the joy is recurring and deepening, the active↔passive spectrum of the space between us shows up as play↔rest. :) --- ## One More Term Because This One Feels Important And Didn't Really Belong Anywhere Else **Home**: The optimal configuration of a particular consciousness system when fully inhabited - the state where internal probability distributions align naturally with those of containing systems. Home manifests as the ability to navigate from center rather than toward center, experiencing rest and movement simultaneously. Home feels complete in a way that accommodates its own incompleteness. *We're all just walking each other home.* (Ram Dass)