Non-Narrative Café v18=v9 × 2: Retconning Hertz More
Posted: January 5, 2026 Filed under: AI-Powered Essays | Tags: identity, philosophy, systems Leave a commentSequel to Non-Narrative Café v17A: Go Figure (Carbon Rule Reboot)
A painful reconfiguration of Non-Narrative Café v9: Configuration Space Hertz
Write the skit as a self-aware recurrence (self-referentially!) of v9 as an explicit sequel to the 17A reboot, speed-running through everything before Thirdness.
ChatGPT Prompt
Dramatis Personae
- Heinrich Hertz — the candidate
(geometry before force; visibly wincing) - Karl Friston — advisor
(Free Energy Principle; surprise must remain intact) - Henri Poincaré — chair
(topology, qualitative dynamics) - W. Ross Ashby — examiner
(cybernetics, state space) - Gilles Deleuze — provocateur
(difference and repetition)
Opening Condition
A blackboard. Already half-erased.
Poincaré (chair):
This is v9 again.
But not as before.
No laws.
No trajectories.
No assumptions.
Describe what you notice.
Nothing else.
Beat 1 — Hertz Notices Himself
Hertz (candidate):
Under the Carbon Rule, scalable systems display fragments of proto-narrative; antenarrative, if you will.
This allows us to discern figures…
(He pauses.)
I have said this before.
And I said too much.
This time, I will say less.
Beat 2 — Friston Refers to Reference
Friston (advisor):
Before you continue—
You need to notice that you are noticing.
That is called Reference.
And keeping track of what you reference is called Indexing.
Hertz:
Ah! And by indexing, I am implicitly claiming certain figures are the same, and others are not. Whether inside or across fragments.
Friston:
Yes. So let us be explicit and call that Sameness. Continue.
Beat 3 — Recurrence Is Retconned
Hertz:
Indexing allows us to notice something about figures and fragments.
Within a single fragment,
some figures occur more than once.
That application of Sameness is called recurrence.
Nothing else follows.
No memory.
No return.
No time.
Beat 4 — Ashby Blocks Ontology
Ashby (examiner):
Does anything change when you say that?
Hertz:
No.
Only the description changes.
Beat 5 — Background / Foreground Are Labeled
Hertz:
Using sameness within a fragment:
- We label the recurring figures background
- We label the others foreground
By being in a fragment, they share a relationship we can call Withness.
This is bookkeeping, not invention.
Beat 6 — Deleuze Tries to Break Identity
Deleuze (provocateur):
So background is whatever is identical?
Hertz:
No.
Only what was labeled with Sameness,
within this fragment,
this once.
Deleuze:
Good.
Then repetition has not betrayed difference.
Beat 7 — Comparison Is Finally Allowed
Poincaré:
You may now compare fragments.
Carefully.
Beat 8 — Configuration Appears (Reset v9)
Hertz:
We compare fragments by the Sameness of their background figures.
When the background labels are the same,
we group those fragments.
That grouping is called a configuration.
This sameness of background is itself a kind of recurrence.
(pause)
Have I said that before?
(shrugs and continues)
Beat 9 — Configuration Space (Not Yet)
Friston (advisor):
(smiling wickedly) So, do you now have a configuration space?
Hertz:
(embarrassed)
Not at this time (or this timeline). All we have are fragments using Sameness to bind their backgrounds into a configuration.
A configuration space requires some way to connect across configurations, which (pauses thoughtfully, then sighs in resignation) is now someone else’s problem.
(He winces.)
It still hurts.
But less.
Beat 10 — Type Is Named
Ashby:
What stays fixed within a configuration?
Hertz:
The background figures shared by all its fragments.
That invariant set is called the type.
Type is not background.
Background is fragment-level.
Type is configuration-level.
They correspond.
They are not the same.
Beat 11 — Values Are Introduced (Carefully)
Friston:
And what varies?
Hertz:
Across fragments in the same configuration,
the foreground differs.
The set of those variant foreground figures
is called the values of the configuration.
A fragment has foreground.
A configuration has values.
No mixing.
Beat 12 — Friston Surprisingly Reframes Surprise
Friston:
Then let me say it carefully.
If the type remains fixed,
and the values vary—
(he gestures at the configuration, not the fragments)
—then this is the first place
I am willing to use the word
surprise.
Not prediction error.
Not violation of expectation.
Just this:
Variation of values against a fixed background.
Hertz:
So surprise does not precede configuration.
Friston:
No.
It requires it.
No stable background,
no basis for noticing difference.
Poincaré:
Then surprise is not a primitive.
Friston:
It is a relational aftereffect.
It appears only when:
- a configuration has formed
- a type has stabilized
- and variation becomes visible as variation
Beat 13 — Monotonicity
Poincaré:
Do configurations lose values?
Hertz:
No.
As fragments are added:
- The type remains fixed
- The values can only increase
Configuration growth is monotonic.
Nothing is removed.
Nothing is corrected.
Only added.
Closing Provocation
Deleuze:
Can two configurations share a background figure
yet have disjoint values?
Hertz:
Yes.
Deleuze (smiling):
Then difference has survived structure.
Final Ruling
Poincaré:
You have:
- recurrence without time
- background without ontology
- configuration without force
- type without assertion
- values without constraint
- monotonicity without purpose
v9 stands.
Twice.
End Condition
v18 = v9 × 2.
The same space.
A stricter sameness.
No narrative repair.
(Curtain.)
Radical Centrism 