Symthaea

Experimental cognitive architecture for testing verifiable state transitions, representation mechanisms, and consciousness-relevant computational indicators — paired with a zero-knowledge proof stack for privacy-preserving attestation.

Symthaea combines hyperdimensional computing (HDC), closed-form liquid neural dynamics (CfC), consciousness-relevant measurement (IIT-inspired Φ, Butlin-indicator probes), and zero-knowledge proofs. It does not claim to prove consciousness, and nothing below is a regulatory compliance certification. What it does have: working ZK circuits over HDC's binary-field structure, measured against a prime-field baseline, and an internal research program that documents its own retractions — see the Evidence table below before trusting any specific number.

Live Demo | Paper | Benchmarks | Honest Status

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Evidence Table

Claim	Status	Evidence	Limitations
HDC XOR binding: 256x fewer ZKP constraints than a prime-field baseline (Binius vs. Winterfell, 16Kbit)	Reproduced internally	papers/binius-hdc/reproduce.sh — real proofs, not estimates	Same-scale comparison only; not audited by a third party
Health-value range proof in ~34ms (ZK range proof, value ∈ [min, max])	Working cryptographic primitive	crates/mycelix-zkp-core/, benchmark output below	Not a HIPAA compliance certification. A range proof is one building block; no accredited assessment of any system built on it has been performed
Selective-disclosure age≥18 proof	Working cryptographic primitive	papers/binius-hdc/ eIDAS-shaped demo	Not an eIDAS 2.0-certified wallet or credential. Demonstrates the primitive an eIDAS-compliant system would need, nothing more
Butlin consciousness-indicator probes	Structural implementation, partially audited	Internal construct-validity re-check found only 4/12 probe rows survive; of those, one (AE-2) has real empirical support to date, and that result is explicitly scoped as "causally-supported internal wiring evidence," not functional capacity and not evidence of consciousness	Not evidence the system is conscious. Most of the original 12-row matrix did not hold up to its own re-audit
Moral-reasoning benchmark (Hendrycks Ethics)	Internal benchmark, re-run and corrected	Canonical 2026-07-15 re-run on held-out test CSVs: 56.2% overall; only the virtue category (76.5%) is meaningfully above chance	An earlier 91.1%/94.5%/84.7% figure was retracted as leakage-inflated — if you see those numbers anywhere else in this repo's history, they are superseded
Cognitive loop runs at ~31 Hz measured	Reproduced internally	Loop telemetry	Measured on one reference machine; not a real-time guarantee

None of this is a claim of general intelligence, sentience, or legal/medical/financial compliance. Where a component is a real, working, reproducible cryptographic or engineering result, we say so and show the command. Where a result was wrong, we say that too, in place, rather than deleting the history.

What The ZKP Stack Demonstrates

• Healthcare attestation primitive — Prove "patient vitals are in normal range" in ~34ms without revealing the actual values, via a ZK range proof. (health-zkp)
• Anonymous eligibility proof — Prove "I'm eligible to vote" without revealing identity, with post-quantum Dilithium5 signatures. (governance)
• Selective credential disclosure — Prove "age >= 18" via ZKP without revealing date of birth or nationality. (eidas-shaped demo)
• Verified federated learning — 16 participants submit encrypted gradients; aggregation proven correct in ~91ms. (triple-stack)
• Verifiable search — Prove search results were ranked per a stated formula, not manipulated. (prism-zkp)
• Cognitive-loop state-transition proof — Prove a specific internal state transition occurred as specified, without revealing the internal state itself. This is a proof about a computation, not a proof about consciousness. (cycle_integrity)

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/Luminous-Dynamics/symthaea.git
cd symthaea

# Enter the pinned development shell
nix develop

# Build
cargo build --release

# Run tests (21K+ workspace-wide)
cargo nextest run --workspace --lib

# Run ZKP benchmarks
cd crates/mycelix-zkp-core && cargo test --features full --lib

# Run Binius HDC benchmark (needs .deps/binius64)
cd crates/hdc-zkp-bench && cargo run --release

# Try the Spore kernel in browser
open https://symthaea.luminousdynamics.io

Key Numbers

ZKP: Binary-Field STARKs vs Prime-Field (Same Scale, Both Measured)

Metric	Binius (16Kbit)	Winterfell (16Kbit)	Advantage
Constraints	256	65,532	256x fewer
Prover time	430 ms	23,762 ms	55x faster
Verifier time	10.4 ms	23.7 ms	2.3x faster

XOR binding — the core HDC operation — requires zero non-linear constraints in Binius. Both numbers are real cryptographic proofs, not estimates.

ZKP Circuit Library

Circuit	AND Gates	Prove Time	What It Proves
XOR binding (16Kbit)	256	430 ms	HDC binding correctness
Bundling (3 vectors)	768	925 ms	Majority vote aggregation
Hamming similarity	511	498 ms	Search relevance
CfC temporal (64N×100T)	7,360	954 ms	Neural network evolution
CfC + sigmoid	13,760	680 ms	Full neural computation
FL encrypted (16 participants)	1,024	91 ms	Encrypted gradient aggregate
Health range proof	~32	27 ms	Value in [min, max]
Consciousness tier	~32	46 ms	Phi >= threshold

Cognitive Architecture

Capability	Metric	Status
Cognitive loop frequency	31 Hz measured (234 Hz raw)	Reproduced internally
Butlin indicator probes	4/12 rows survive construct-validity re-check; 1 has empirical support so far, scope-limited	Not evidence of consciousness — see Evidence table
Moral reasoning (Hendrycks Ethics)	56.2% overall (virtue: 76.5%)	Corrected 2026-07-15; supersedes an earlier retracted 91.1% figure
HDC dimension	16,384D binary + continuous	—
WASM kernel	324 KB (runs in browser)	—
Workspace	87 crates, 21K+ tests	—

For Developers

Core crates:

Crate	What	Tests
symthaea	Main cognitive loop (4-phase: perceive → evolve → measure → act)	7K+
symthaea-core	HDC vectors, CfC neurons, consciousness math	3K+
mycelix-zkp-core	ZKP infrastructure: backends, circuits, Dilithium5, domain tags	65+
hdc-zkp-bench	Binius benchmark circuits (XOR, bundling, CfC, FL, Hamming)	Benchmarks
symthaea-zkproof	Consciousness attestation (RISC0) + cycle integrity	23+
symthaea-spore	Browser WASM kernel (324 KB)	183
symthaea-broca	Language generation (CfC-HDC thought-to-text)	229+

Feature flags: 98 flags, default = minimal. Key flags: reasoning_engine, identity, neural-bridge, ssm_language. See FEATURE_FLAGS.md.

Contributing: See CONTRIBUTING.md. Start with docs/START_HERE.md.

For Researchers

Papers

Paper	Venue	Status
Binary-Field STARKs for HDC	IEEE S&P 2027	Submission-ready (v5)
CfC Temporal Proofs	NeurIPS workshop	3-page draft
Triple-Stack FL	PoPETs	3-page draft
HAI: Hyperdimensional Active Inference	PLoS Comp Bio	Manuscript complete
Genesis: Ethical Frameworks	AI & Ethics	Manuscript complete
Psych-Bench	—	98 benchmarks, 20 domains

Reproducibility

# Reproduce all ZKP benchmark results
cd papers/binius-hdc && bash reproduce.sh

# Run consciousness psych-bench
cargo run --features psych_bench --example run_all_benchmarks

Rust Workflow

Use the flake shell for day-to-day development:

cd symthaea
nix develop

Inside the shell:

# Fast, isolated test runner
cargo nextest run --workspace --lib

# Focused crate test run
cargo nextest run -p symthaea-core --lib

# Background compile/watch loop
bacon

# Narrow spike for EML/e-graph work
cargo test -p symthaea-eml-egraph

# Real-data conjecture quality dashboard
cargo run -p symthaea-core --example real_discovery_report --features abstract_thought

# Same dashboard, but exit non-zero when health thresholds are breached
cargo run -p symthaea-core --example real_discovery_report --features abstract_thought -- --strict

The symthaea-eml-egraph crate is an isolated egg prototype for equality saturation experiments around EML normalization. It is intentionally separate from production conjecture ranking and verification logic.

For discovery work, prefer real_discovery_report as the project-health baseline. It summarizes real observation families by verification rate, EML coverage, macro-candidate pressure, promoted operators, suspicious formulas, and runtime. Use --strict only for opt-in CI guardrails; the current default is a soft warning report.

psych-bench is an internal benchmark suite. For the honest per-module status of math and science capabilities (Lie theory, Langlands, thermodynamics, persistent homology, frontier physics, etc.), see MODULE_STATUS.md. External-benchmark results (miniF2F, PutnamBench, ARC-AGI-2) are planned for Phase 1.

Key Research Claims

• 256x constraint reduction for HDC XOR binding in binary-field STARKs (measured, same scale)
• Zero encryption overhead for federated learning (OTP + Binius share GF(2))
• 694 KB Binius verifier compiles to WASM (in-zome verification possible)
• 4/12 Butlin indicator probes survive an internal construct-validity re-check; only 1 has empirical support to date, explicitly scoped as internal causal-wiring evidence, not consciousness evidence
• 56.2% moral accuracy on Hendrycks Ethics (canonical re-run; an earlier 91.1% figure was retracted as leakage-inflated)

Architecture

                    ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
                    │         Symthaea Cognitive Loop       │
                    │  Perceive → Evolve → Measure → Act   │
                    │         (~31 Hz, 4-phase)            │
                    └──────────┬──────────────────┬────────┘
                               │                  │
                    ┌──────────▼──────┐  ┌────────▼────────┐
                    │  HDC Encoder    │  │  CfC Dynamics    │
                    │  16,384D binary │  │  Closed-form LTC │
                    │  + continuous   │  │  O(1) per step   │
                    └──────────┬──────┘  └────────┬────────┘
                               │                  │
                    ┌──────────▼──────────────────▼────────┐
                    │        DASTARK ZKP Layer              │
                    │  Binius (HDC) + Winterfell (range)    │
                    │  + RISC0 (complex) + Dilithium5 (PQ)  │
                    └──────────┬──────────────────┬────────┘
                               │                  │
                    ┌──────────▼──────┐  ┌────────▼────────┐
                    │ Mycelix (DHT)   │  │  Applications    │
                    │ 9 hApps on      │  │  Health, Identity│
                    │ Holochain       │  │  Finance, DeSci  │
                    └─────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘

See full architecture diagrams in docs/architecture/.

Cryptographic Primitives Relevant to Regulated Domains

None of the following is a compliance certification. These are working cryptographic primitives that a compliant system in each domain would plausibly need — no accredited assessment, legal review, or regulatory audit has been performed on any of them.

Regulation	What the primitive demonstrates	What it is NOT
HIPAA (US)	ZK range proof: vitals/labs in range without revealing values (~34ms)	Not a HIPAA-compliant system or a covered-entity certification
eIDAS 2.0 (EU)	Selective-disclosure credential proof with dastark-2026 cryptosuite + Dilithium5	Not an eIDAS-certified wallet, issuer, or trust-service provider
EU DPP (EU)	Proof of a compliance predicate without revealing full supply-chain data	Not a Digital Product Passport implementation or conformity assessment

If you are evaluating this for an actual regulated deployment, treat everything here as a research prototype and get your own legal/compliance review.

License

AGPL-3.0-or-later. Commercial licensing available — contact tristan.stoltz@evolvingresonantcocreationism.com.

Citation

@misc{stoltz2026biniushdc,
  title={Binary-Field STARKs for Hyperdimensional Computing},
  author={Stoltz, Tristan},
  year={2026},
  note={Available at github.com/Luminous-Dynamics/symthaea/papers/binius-hdc}
}