docs/FIELD_IGNORANCE.md

Field-ignorance loss

Numbers only. English.

Formula

L_ign = ReLU( cos( ℓ(α), ℓ(sg[α_bar]) ) − m )

• ℓ(·) = surface byte logits (same head as CE), from field α vs from stopgrad α_bar
• α_bar = sliding mean of the rolling α-bank of other prompts (not zero, not same-prompt) — or, with --field-ignorance-prompt-bank, mean of a fixed distinct-prompt α bank
• m = 0.85
• weight = 0.08

Purpose: penalize a surface that maps any non-zero α to one shared logit template.

Flags

Flag	Default	Notes
--field-ignorance-weight	0.08	0 disables
--field-ignorance-margin	0.85	hinge margin
--field-ignorance-ablate-shared	off	ℓ(α_bar) gets atom_r/persistence = None (zeros); ℓ(α) live
--field-ignorance-prompt-bank	off	α_bar from probe-style fixed prompts, not train ticks

Wired in AtomNativeModel._field_auxiliary_losses next to field contrast.

Merge diagnostics (read-only)

When the merge path runs, log:

• max_phase_coherence — max pairwise phase-coherence before threshold filter
• n_pairs_above_energy_floor — pairs that clear the energy-floor checks

Thresholds phase_coherence_threshold / merge_energy_floor are unchanged.

Comparison (smokes +2500 from same src @ 2102500)

run	logits cos (before→after)	α cos (before→after)	ign (final)	mph	merges
baseline L_ign	0.992294→0.991285	0.720524→0.698694	0.150	0.500	0
ablate-shared	0.992294→0.991780	0.720524→0.698509	0.150	0.500	0
prompt-bank	0.992294→0.991156	0.720524→0.698703	0.000	0.500	0
both	0.992294→0.992358	0.720524→0.698481	0.000	0.500	0

Success bar: logits drop vs 0.991 without killing α (0.70). Not met on any of the three mechanism smokes.

Detail: docs/LIGN_SMOKE.md, docs/LIGN_ABLATION.md, docs/LIGN_PROMPT_BANK.md, docs/LIGN_ABLATION_PLUS_BANK.md, docs/artifacts/lign_readout_series/SUMMARY.md.