Alison McCrea · Independent Research

The Taphonomy of Sentience

Sentience Index, collapse boundaries, and the postmortem record

The aim is an empirical definition and mathematical model of consciousness, developed through the measurable breakdown of the integrated organization that supports sentience.

Taphonomy of Sentience investigates consciousness through the coordination that sustains a functioning biological system and the conditions under which that coordination fails. Forensic taphonomy, network dynamics, physiological regulation, and information theory supply the methodological foundation. The Sentience Index (Ψ) expresses the proposed relationship between integrated, recoverable organization and the capacity for sentience. Collapse boundaries and postmortem signatures constrain the empirical investigation.

The research question remains: Can the irreversible loss of sentience-supporting biological coherence be modeled as an observable, multiscale collapse process during the postmortem interval?

Research synthesis · October 11, 2026 · Prepared alongside NAME 2026, poster P169

01 · Research premise

Loss as a source of structural information

Forensic reconstruction proceeds from traces to constrained explanations of preceding events. Taphonomic analysis adds a temporal dimension: decomposition, preservation, and environmental interaction leave a record of how biological organization changed. Persistent form and continuing local activity do not establish the continued function of the organism that produced them.

The central ToS proposition applies that logic to sentience-supporting organization. A biological system contains interacting processes with different dependencies, failure modes, and recovery capacities. Loss of circulation, metabolic support, membrane regulation, network coupling, and tissue integrity need not occur on a single clock. Their sequence can constrain an account of the organization lost during systemic failure.

Inference from loss requires a defined function, a measurable baseline, and competing explanations. An absent signal can reflect instrument sensitivity, altered state, or sampling failure. A persistent signal can reflect a surviving subsystem or passive propagation. Converging observations and recovery tests provide stronger constraints than either absence or persistence alone.

The research proceeds from a measurable structural process to a consciousness-related prediction: quantify the loss of coordination, then determine whether its trajectory identifies loss of sentience-supporting capacity beyond general physiological deterioration. An empirical definition earns its explanatory force through that second test.

02 · Core definitions

Organization, recovery, and residue

Terms used within ToS
Term	Meaning and research role
Sentience	The capacity for subjective experience. ToS investigates the measurable biological organization that supports this capacity.
Consciousness	The phenomenon ToS aims to define empirically and model mathematically. The present research focuses on the capacity for sentience and its relationship to integrated, recoverable organization.
Coherence	Coordinated relationships among biological processes. An operational measure specifies the processes, biological scale, and interaction assessed.
Collapse-capable coherence (CCC)	The proposed capacity to sustain integrated internal dynamics, maintain internal reference, and recover organization after perturbation until a structural failure boundary is crossed. “Collapse” concerns organizational failure; quantum wavefunction reduction is a separate concept.
Sentience Index (Ψ)	A proposed descriptor of the organization associated with CCC. Its interpretation depends on the formulation and measurement protocol. The mathematical development includes a configuration-space score, multiscale aggregation, and a separate statistical estimator.
Local coherence, ψ(x,t)	A candidate local observable at position or scale x and time t. Uppercase Ψ denotes a system-level quantity when local observations are aggregated. The January prospectus used uppercase Ψ(x,t) for the field extension; the distinction is made explicit here.
Collapse-capacitance, K_c	Proposed tolerance to perturbation before integrated recovery fails. “Capacitance” denotes resilience in the model and does not imply an electrical capacitance measured in farads.
Coherence-death	The proposed loss of CCC at a specified organizational level. Operational identification requires a recovery criterion, intervention class, and observation period.
Nonreturn Condition (NRC)	The proposed boundary beyond which internally governed reconstruction of prior integrated organization cannot resume within specified conditions. Continued cellular function or externally restored activity must be assessed at its own organizational level.
Event Horizon of Sentience (EHS)	A name for the proposed nonreturn boundary. The horizon comparison expresses a limit of return; no physical identity with a gravitational event horizon is asserted.
Postmortem interregnum	The proposed interval after organism-level regulation ceases during which residual organization persists asynchronously across subordinate biological scales. Timing depends on support, temperature, tissue, intervention, and the recovery outcome under examination.
Collapse Signature Fields (CSFs)	The proposed category of observable residues associated with prior organizational loss. Residue can preserve information about a preceding system without sustaining its integrated function. Earlier drafts differ over whether ordinary acoustic persistence belongs to this category; acoustic comparisons are therefore identified as negative controls rather than diagnosed biological CSFs.

The distinction that organizes the research

The target is coordinated function across an integrated system. Stored information, recognizable form, reverberant signals, and local cellular activity document different kinds of persistence. Their relationship to internal regulation and recovery determines how they enter the Sentience Index.

CCC supplies the proposed organizational criterion. Comparisons with living cells, engineered controllers, and other regulated systems test its specificity. Independent assessments of conscious state and recovery establish whether the index captures the capacity of interest.

03 · Biological transition

The interregnum across scales

The postmortem interval contains overlapping changes in physiology, chemistry, structure, and environment. Organism-level regulation can cease while some cells remain viable, chemical gradients persist, and tissue structures remain recognizable. The interregnum proposition focuses on the changing relationships among those levels.

Algor mortis, livor mortis, rigor mortis, metabolic arrest, and autolysis provide observations of postmortem change. They describe different processes and have distinct environmental sensitivities. A direct relationship between any individual marker and sentience cannot be assumed; the research question concerns their correspondence with measured loss of integration and recovery.

Candidate observations by organizational level
Level	Candidate observations	Question
Cellular	Membrane integrity, metabolic support, compartmental organization	Which local processes remain viable or recoverable?
Network	Neural coordination, information exchange, response to perturbation	Does distributed integration persist or fragment?
Organism	Physiological regulation and independently assessed recovery outcomes	Can coordinated function recover under the specified support?
Environment and tissue	Temperature, moisture, preservation, decomposition signatures	How do external conditions alter the observed trajectory?

The earlier research also considered mitochondrial gradients and Golgi organization as cellular exemplars. Their proposed role is to examine local maintenance, routing, and compartment failure. Neither constitutes an established sentience marker or a demonstrated mechanism linking cellular collapse to Ψ.

Thermodynamic interpretation

Living organisms exchange energy and matter while maintaining gradients and regulated organization. Physiological failure changes those constraints. Postmortem change remains an open-system process: environmental energy, microbial activity, and tissue chemistry continue to shape the trajectory. A body cannot be treated as an isolated system simply approaching one universal maximum-entropy endpoint.

Thermodynamic entropy and information entropy refer to different quantities. A rise in spectral entropy, a loss of synchrony, and a thermodynamic change require separate models and measurements. Their mathematical resemblance does not establish equivalence.

04 · Formal development

The Sentience Index and its formulations

The research record contains distinct mathematical constructions. Each has a defined role in the development of ToS. A configuration-space score, a spatial or scale aggregate, and a calibrated probability require different assumptions; they are documented separately.

The core configuration-space formulation

The November 2025 working manuscript defines:

Ψ = k ln(Ω_self)

Ω_self = C^α I^β R^γ K_c^δ

C represents coherence; I, integration; R, fidelity of internal reference or self-model; and K_c, collapse-capacitance. The exponents weight their contributions. Ω_self is the proposed parameterization of accessible coherent configurations. The January 2026 prospectus describes k as a normalization constant; V3 and the submitted poster use k_B.

Domain, normalization, and identifiability

The logarithm requires a positive, dimensionless argument. With positive weights and components in (0,1], their product is at most one, so k ln(Ω_self) is nonpositive for k > 0. As a component approaches zero, the expression tends to negative infinity; it is undefined at a zero product. The same convention therefore cannot simultaneously define a probability in [0,1] or a score that approaches zero at complete collapse.

Using the Boltzmann constant introduces entropy units. A normalization constant defines a differently scaled score. An operational specification must state which convention applies, how components are measured, and how the score maps to a recovery outcome. The component product has not been independently established as a physical microstate count. The configuration-space formulation is retained as the research model, with those mathematical choices explicit.

Multiscale aggregation

The March–April 2026 notes develop local coherence and its aggregation:

Ψ(t) = ∫_𝒟 w(x) ψ(x,t) dμ(x)

This rendering makes the aggregation measure explicit. 𝒟 identifies the spatial or scale domain, ψ the defined local observable, and w its weighting. A finite set of biological scales may instead use a weighted sum. Measurement units and weighting must prevent double-counting correlated scales. The symbol 𝒟 distinguishes this domain from Ω_self in the configuration-space model.

The original notes use an integral of w_iC_i(t) across scale-space. Later poster-development material uses ψ(x,t). These expressions provide an aggregation architecture; they do not derive the logarithmic index.

Differential dynamics

The January prospectus proposes a general differential extension governed by coherence, integration, internal reference, collapse-capacitance, perturbation, and boundary conditions. Development notes explore a descriptive toy field:

∂ψ/∂t = D∇²ψ − λψ + s(x,t)

D represents a spatial coupling or diffusion coefficient, λ a loss rate, and s specified support or forcing. A field equation requires a defined domain, units, initial state, boundary conditions, and observable ψ. A time-only decay equation is an ordinary differential equation; it becomes a PDE when spatial dependence and its derivatives are included.

The homogeneous, unforced limit gives exponential decay. Biological trajectories may instead show nonlinear loss, transient increases, multiple timescales, or intervention-dependent recovery. Exponential ring-down is a testable approximation for a specified observable, rather than a governing law of sentience.

An empirical statistical estimator

The September 2026 empirical notes develop a separate estimation strategy:

Ψ̂(t) = P(Y = 1 | X_t) = σ(β₀ + Σ_iβ_iX_i + Σ_i<jβ_ijX_iX_j)

X contains prespecified observations of neural coordination, metabolism, integration, regulation, and structural integrity. σ is the logistic function. Y denotes an independently defined recovery or capacity outcome. Using Y here avoids confusing an outcome label with the coherence component C. A probability interpretation requires calibration and independently justified labels; Ψ̂ is distinguished from the conceptual Ψ.

Candidate coupling summaries use weighted mutual information among subsystems. Loss rates can be described by κ = −dΨ/dt once a particular Ψ has been defined. A negative derivative identifies decline; it cannot, on its own, establish irreversible nonreturn.

Earlier formulations and operational surrogates

The August 2025 preprint uses a weighted geometric mean of Architecture (A), Recursion (R), Coherence (C), and Boundary Permeability (B):

Ψ_early = (A^αR^βC^γB^δ)^{1/(α+β+γ+δ)}

The November manuscript replaces those components with C, I, R, and K_c. March–April notes also combine coherence, persistence time, normalized entropy, and cross-scale coupling as an operational surrogate. The pasted outline loses some operators, so no definitive product equation is reconstructed from that text. Synchrony, autocorrelation decay, spectral entropy, and transfer entropy remain candidate measurements whose relation to the core model requires derivation and testing.

The earlier Coherence-Death Criterion combines low coherence and a decline rate in one draft; V3 uses an “or” condition. Either requires an additional recovery test before a threshold crossing can substantiate irreversibility. Mathematical history is retained without converting those criteria into a validated clinical rule.

05 · Evidence and precedent

What the observations contribute

Published taphonomic foundation · 2014

Alison McCrea’s earlier work, published as Alison Marissa Brooks Garcia with Ronald G. Beckett and James T. Watson, examined decomposition and preservation in an experimental Chiribaya-style tomb. One 68 kg swine analogue occupied a wool-wrapped experimental tomb; an identical empty tomb provided environmental comparison. Temperature and humidity logging accompanied endoscopic observation across a 95-day burial. Partial preservation occurred without overall mummification. [1]

The study supplies methodological precedent: environmental context, serial observation, and the relationship between preserved form and postmortem process. It did not measure Ψ, consciousness, or organism-level recovery. The later ToS program extends that taphonomic reasoning toward organizational loss.

BrainEx · 2019

Vrselja and colleagues reported restoration of circulation and selected cellular functions in isolated pig brains using ex vivo perfusion after a prolonged postmortem interval. Global electrocorticographic activity was absent. The result distinguishes cellular restoration from demonstrated recovery of integrated conscious function. [3]

OrganEx · 2022

Andrijevic and colleagues reported preservation and recovery of selected cellular processes across porcine organs after one hour of warm ischaemia following cardiac arrest. The experiment did not demonstrate restored consciousness. [4] For ToS, the inference is that a nonreturn claim must identify the organizational level and intervention being tested; cellular salvage cannot be equated with restored sentience.

Neural activity near death · 2022

Vicente and colleagues described EEG activity and cross-frequency coupling around cardiac arrest in a single patient with severe neurological injury. [5] The report motivates measurement of temporal and frequency structure near systemic failure. Its circumstances and single-case design do not establish subjective experience or a universal Ψ threshold.

Meaning threat and affective modulation · 2013

Randles, Heine, and Santos studied compensatory judgments following mortality reminders or surrealist material under acetaminophen or placebo. [6] The work provides context for state-dependent responses to meaning threat. It did not measure postmortem collapse, establish unchanged neural function, or derive a PDE for sentience.

The published studies constrain the questions and measurement design. No new biological validation dataset for the Sentience Index is reported in this synthesis.

06 · Comparisons and boundary probes

Persistence, internal regulation, and loss

Canterbury reverberation

The acoustic comparison examines a structured tail after excitation ends. Reflection, absorption, and architectural geometry shape persistence; the sound field does not maintain an internal reference or regulate its own recovery. An echo carries information about a prior event without establishing continuing awareness.

The research record contains separate Canterbury materials: short platform-derived organ excerpts in the January notes, and an Evensong phone recording attributed to Eric in later discussions. The submitted poster describes an approximately 12-second tail. Those observations are not combined into one calibrated reverberation-time measurement.

Recorded analysis claims and measurement provenance

The January working draft reports captured tails of approximately 7.52 and 9.07 seconds with respective broadband drops of approximately 5.9 and 9.3 dB. It explicitly identifies compressed, excerpt-limited recordings rather than calibrated impulse responses. The source audio and analysis code are absent from this review package; the reported measurements have not been reproduced in this synthesis. Clip duration, time to a 10 dB drop, and RT60 describe different quantities.

A reproducible acoustic comparison would identify the recording, source offset, frequency bands, level normalization, noise floor, and decay fit. Its role is to test how structured persistence can occur without internal regulation.

Infrasound and environmental fields

Earlier notes discuss Benn Jordan’s “Hum” material as another example of signals sustained by source and environment. An apparent persistent field can involve continuing excitation, propagation, interference, or multiple sources. Distinguishing those conditions precedes any decay analysis. A perceptual report of presence or agency does not determine the physical source or demonstrate sentience.

Digital taphonomy

Controlled network degradation supplies a tractable proposed testbed: remove nodes or edges, alter parameters, introduce noise, and assess remaining coordination and recovery. System interruption, preserved storage, restored checkpoints, and structural destruction must be distinguished. Recoverable stored information and runtime failure have different consequences.

Synthetic systems can test whether Ψ distinguishes passive persistence from internally regulated recovery. Their sentience status cannot be established or excluded simply because they are synthetic. A failure-sensitive metric must be tested against resilient nonsentient systems as well as fragile networks.

Horizon physics and comparative theories

Hawking’s work supplies the physical context for radiation and black-hole thermodynamics. [12,13] Horizon language in ToS remains an operational comparison about return and recovery. It does not establish consciousness in astronomical structures or resolve the black-hole information problem.

Integrated information theory and the free-energy principle provide adjacent accounts of integration and regulation. [10,11] Their quantities are not substituted for Ψ. Penrose and Hameroff’s Orch OR proposal concerns quantum processes and objective reduction; ToS addresses organizational collapse in the postmortem interval. [15] Similar terminology does not establish a shared mechanism.

The Chocolate Bunny Systems Paradox

The named conceptual example describes a disproportionate affective response to an affiliative stimulus under acute mortality salience, emerging from chronically stabilized homeostatic conditions. The proposed interpretation concerns state-dependent valuation: recognition of irreversibility can amplify the meaning of care, safety, and connection without demonstrating global structural failure.

The example extends the development record toward affective regulation and relational coupling. It remains a thought experiment requiring independent definitions and observations; it is not a test of postmortem sentience or the nonreturn boundary.

07 · Empirical program

Testing the empirical definition

First, measure the breakdown of coordination. Then test whether that breakdown predicts loss of sentience-supporting capacity beyond physiological deterioration alone. Testing begins with a specified system, measurement scale, perturbation, and independently assessed outcome. Neural coordination, metabolic support, regulation, and structural integrity supply candidate inputs.

Consciousness-related measurements require comparison states: wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, recovery, and severe impairment, alongside the postmortem trajectory. The perturbational complexity index supplies an existing example of connecting a theory-driven measure of distributed brain responses to independently characterized states. [18] For ToS, such measurements are candidate comparators within a validation design.

Predictions and findings that would challenge them
Prediction	Test	Challenge
Loss of cross-scale coordination adds information beyond local decay.	Compare coupled models with independent subsystem models and simpler physiological predictors.	Equivalent prediction from local decay or measurement artifacts.
Failure and recovery differ across levels and support conditions.	Track several scales with time-aligned measurements and documented interventions.	No reproducible scale-dependent relationship to recovery.
Collapse-capacitance describes resistance to structural perturbation.	Estimate degradation and recovery curves across network architectures.	No stable relation between the proposed component and independently assessed resilience.
A proposed boundary separates recoverable and unrecoverable organization within specified conditions.	Prespecify recovery criteria, intervention class, observation window, and uncertainty.	Repeated recovery after the model predicts nonreturn.
Ψ predicts consciousness-related capacity beyond general deterioration.	Compare independently assessed conscious states and recovery outcomes with models based on tissue damage, metabolism, and time alone; test held-out observations.	The index predicts deterioration but adds no information about conscious state or capacity; poor calibration or unstable weights.
Organized passive persistence can be separated from internally regulated dynamics.	Include acoustic fields, disconnected/shuffled networks, and regulated nonsentient controls.	High scores produced by passive signals or generic resilience alone.

Proposed sequence

Define the biological or synthetic system and the function whose recoverability is being assessed.
Specify observables, units, sampling rate, component estimators, and uncertainty before fitting the model.
Characterize baseline dynamics and the effects of support loss or controlled perturbation.
Measure recovery under specified conditions and compare trajectories across organizational scales.
Test ablations, alternative models, artifacts, and negative controls.
Evaluate new observations separately from those used for model construction.

Anesthesia and reversible suppression provide comparison states for functional loss without permanent destruction. Pathological decline and postmortem change provide other trajectories with different timescales. They require domain-specific data and outcomes before a common index can be evaluated.

Computational strategy and ULTRA-LSD

Large-scale parameter screening followed by independent validation informs the proposed computational workflow. ULTRA-LSD itself refers to ultra-large-scale molecular docking. Lyu and colleagues’ work concerns compound discovery. [17] It does not perform spectral decomposition or directly fit postmortem coherence trajectories. Network simulation, trajectory fitting, and biological validation require their own methods.

08 · Research history

From taphonomic precedent to a multiscale program

Chronology supported by the recovered research record
Date	Material	Contribution
2014	Brooks Garcia, Beckett, and Watson	Published environmental-taphonomy study; methodological foundation.
June–July 2025	Retrospective development notes	Early conceptual development. Underlying dated whiteboards were not recovered in this source review.
August 2025	Early manuscript and ResearchGate preprint	Architecture, recursion, coherence, boundary permeability; early geometric index.
November 2025–January 2026	V3 working manuscript and development notes	C–I–R–K_c formulation; logarithmic configuration-space score; NRC, EHS, and CSFs; perturbation program.
January 2026	Prospectus and audio comparisons	Concise structural account, differential extension, persistence controls, cellular exemplars.
March–April 2026	Multiscale notes and structural outline	Local coherence, aggregate Ψ, support/loss dynamics, candidate proxies, Chocolate Bunny Systems Paradox.
2026 NAME submission	Accepted abstract, poster P169	Focus on collapse dynamics during the postmortem interval.
September 2026	Empirical framework and submitted poster	Biological predictors, probabilistic estimation, interregnum, testing and falsification.
October 2026	Bibliography updates and research synthesis	Source verification, OrganEx distinction, ULTRA-LSD correction, reconciliation of model versions.

The development record traces a sustained effort to define consciousness empirically through integrated organization and its loss. The 2014 taphonomic study supplies the published methodological foundation; subsequent stages develop the Sentience Index, recovery boundaries, multiscale dynamics, and validation strategy.

Current contribution and next empirical work

ToS develops an empirical route to a definition of consciousness: identify the organization that supports sentience, measure how its coordination changes, and test whether the resulting formula predicts capacity and loss. The contribution includes candidate components, formal models, recovery boundaries, and falsifiable comparisons. The next empirical step is to calibrate those components and test their explanatory value against independently assessed outcomes.

Measurement scope and current validation status

The research aim is an empirical definition of consciousness. The present equations specify candidate models and measurement strategies; their relationship to conscious experience and capacity requires independent validation. Thresholds are estimated within specified systems and support conditions. Clinical death determination requires its own established criteria and validation.

Read the submitted NAME poster Read the August 2025 preprint

09 · Bibliography

Sources and their roles

The bibliography combines recovered manuscript references and recently retained sources. Source roles are stated so that methodological precedent, theoretical context, and empirical observations remain distinguishable.

Brooks Garcia, A. M., Beckett, R. G., & Watson, J. T. (2014). Internal environmental characteristics of a Chiribaya style tomb holding swine remains and their taphonomic impact on decomposition delay, a requisite for mummification. Papers on Anthropology, 23(1), 45–62. Publisher record. Published taphonomic foundation; the landing-page title spells the last term “requisit.”
McCrea, A. (2025). Taphonomy of sentience: Structural signatures and the postmortem loss of collapse-capable coherence [Preprint]. ResearchGate. DOI. Public conceptual antecedent.
Vrselja, Z., Daniele, S. G., Silbereis, J., et al. (2019). Restoration of brain circulation and cellular functions hours post-mortem. Nature, 568, 336–343. DOI. Cellular recovery and its limits.
Andrijevic, D., Vrselja, Z., Lysyy, T., et al. (2022). Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body. Nature, 608, 405–412. DOI. Intervention-dependent cellular recovery.
Vicente, R., Rizzuto, M., Sarica, C., et al. (2022). Enhanced interplay of neuronal coherence and coupling in the dying human brain. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 14, 813531. DOI. Single-case neural dynamics around cardiac arrest.
Randles, D., Heine, S. J., & Santos, N. (2013). The common pain of surrealism and death: Acetaminophen reduces compensatory affirmation following meaning threats. Psychological Science, 24(6), 966–973. DOI. Affective and meaning-threat context.
Watts, D. J., & Strogatz, S. H. (1998). Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks. Nature, 393, 440–442. DOI. Network organization.
Sporns, O., Tononi, G., & Kötter, R. (2005). The human connectome: A structural description of the human brain. PLoS Computational Biology, 1(4), e42. DOI. Structural connectivity and measurement scales.
Shannon, C. E. (1948). A mathematical theory of communication. Bell System Technical Journal, 27, 379–423, 623–656. Part I DOI. Information-theoretic entropy.
Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M., & Koch, C. (2016). Integrated information theory: From consciousness to its physical substrate. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17, 450–461. DOI. Comparative theory of consciousness.
Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 127–138. DOI. Regulation and inference context.
Hawking, S. W. (1975). Particle creation by black holes. Communications in Mathematical Physics, 43, 199–220. DOI. Horizon and radiation physics.
Hawking, S. W. (1976). Black holes and thermodynamics. Physical Review D, 13, 191–197. DOI. Black-hole thermodynamics.
Einstein, A., Podolsky, B., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Physical Review, 47, 777–780. DOI. Historical quantum-foundations context.
Hameroff, S., & Penrose, R. (2014). Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, 11(1), 39–78. DOI. Comparative quantum-consciousness proposal.
Tegmark, M. (2000). Importance of quantum decoherence in brain processes. Physical Review E, 61, 4194–4206. DOI. Quantum-coherence constraints.
Lyu, J., Wang, S., Balius, T. E., et al. (2019). Ultra-large library docking for discovering new chemotypes. Nature, 566, 224–229. DOI. Computational-screening context and correction of the older ULTRA-LSD description.
Casali, A. G., Gosseries, O., Rosanova, M., et al. (2013). A theoretically based index of consciousness independent of sensory processing and behavior. Science Translational Medicine, 5(198), 198ra105. DOI. Empirical comparator linking perturbational responses to independently characterized conscious states.

Foundational entropy sources and continuing bibliography assembly

The research record explicitly retains Clausius, Boltzmann, Planck, Gibbs, Shannon, and Prigogine. The relevant formulations are thermodynamic entropy change dS = δQ_rev/T; Boltzmann–Planck multiplicity S = k_B ln W; ensemble entropy S = −k_BΣp_iln p_i; and Shannon information entropy H = −Σp_ilog p_i. Each requires its own assumptions, probabilities, and units.

Recovered historical anchors include Clausius’s 1865 Ueber verschiedene für die Anwendung bequeme Formen der Hauptgleichungen der mechanischen Wärmetheorie (publisher record) and Gibbs’s 1902 Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics. Exact Boltzmann and Planck editions and the Prigogine source selected for the final bibliography remain under review.

Additional recovered leads include Sporns’s Networks of the Brain (2010), Boccaletti and colleagues’ complex-network review (2006), Tononi’s 2004 integration paper, Landauer, Kuramoto and synchronization literature, anesthesia and neurodegeneration metrics, taphonomic decomposition and microbiome studies, and Bekenstein, Page, and Harlow on horizon/information physics. These leads are retained for source selection; no unresolved title, attribution, or publication detail is presented as a verified citation.

Source recovery draws on the August manuscript, V3 working draft, January prospectus, development notes, March–April structural outline, September empirical specification, submitted NAME poster, and October bibliography log. The public preprint, original NAME abstract, submitted poster, and current synthesis document successive stages of the research.