Weilding the Trident In the Arena of Adaptative Intelligence
Mastering Your Brain’s G-Loop at the Edge of Criticality
This is another technical article on the cutting edge ‘G Loop’ - the universal algorithm of general adaptive intelligence - but to help with understanding, it is framed in terms of handling a trident.
Picture yourself wielding a trident in an arena. You and your trident are in the dynamic and critical Ψ-Band where your adaptive intelligence thrives. Each part of your trident aligns with critical aspects of intelligent cognitive functioning.
This fighter in the arena can also manifest her trident at either end of the shaft at will (Thanks Gemini!)
Parts of the Trident:
Note: While I highlight large-scale brain networks here, the same “trident” architecture operates at the micro-scale within each cortical column — feeding salience, control/exploit, creative/explore and consolidation loops in miniature.
Central Fork: Salience detection and decision-making: Anterior cingulate cortex and Salience Network (SN).
Left Fork: Control/Exploit Mode (rapid rule learning/application). D1 dopamine dominant in the Fronto-Parietal Control Network (FPCN).
Right Fork: Creative/Explore Mode (disengagement, divergent and experimental thinking). D2 dopamine-dominant in the FPCN.
Shaft: Crystallised intelligence (consolidated skills and knowledge). Default Mode Network based.
Central Hub: Critical point (expected free energy, F*). A Salience Network Hub.
G Loop in Action:
Here’s a step-by-step walk-through of the G-Loop understood as weilding the trident. I will illustrate with a concrete example — a day-trip planning problem that requires both hippocampal relational reasoning (to map distances and times) and prefrontal rule application (to respect budget and time constraints).
Operating in the Ψ-Band — your brain’s “sweet spot” near criticality — you run a self-tuning eight-step cycle:
Sense & Move (shaft + fork) gathers and maps all relevant facts.
Prediction-Error Check (hub) flags any surprises (ΔF).
Compress follows immediately, distilling that error into a crisp takeaway and updating your confidence (η).
Decision branches into Autopilot, Exploit or Explore based on η and meta-uncertainty (χ).
Execute carries out either the tried-and-true routine or a creative detour.
Meta-Cognitive Binding checks overall coherence before fully committing.
Consolidation is where both new map fragments and simple “if-then” rules are cemented into your long-term, crystallised store (Gc) — synaptic scaling locks in cognitive map-vectors, and PFC heuristics become lasting affordances.
Loop Reset realigns oscillatory and dopamine thresholds for the next surprise.
1. Sense & Move (Central Fork + Shaft)
What happens
Sense: You take in everything you need to know — where you are now, how far you need to go, any limits on time or money.
Move: You mentally “place” that information on your internal map, combining what you just sensed with the picture you already carry in your head.
Here, the shaft of the trident represents your well-practiced routines (your “autopilot” skills), while the central fork — powered by your brain’s salience network (think of it like an internal spotlight) — flags anything new, surprising, or urgent that deserves extra attention.
Technical glossary
Salience network: A brain circuit (including the anterior cingulate and insula) that highlights important inputs — like a mental “spotlight.”
Cortical columns, layer 4 vs layer 1: In each tiny cortical module, layer 4 brings in fresh sensory data (“what you sense”), while layer 1 carries feedback from higher areas (“what you expect”). Together they compare real inputs against predictions, so you start from a well-calibrated map .
Everyday example: You’ve got eight hours and a $50 budget to tour three nearby towns. In this Sense & Move phase you:
List the facts: Town A is 30 miles away, Town B is another 20 miles beyond that, Town C sits 15 miles back in the other direction.
Note the constraints: You need 30 minutes in each town, and you estimate £10 for diesel and £5 per meal.
Anchor it on your mental map: You ‘see’ in your mind’s eye the route, timing, and costs, ready for the next decision step.
The neuroscience: This mirrors how each cortical column constantly integrates bottom-up inputs (layer 4) with top-down expectations (layer 1) — a rapid micro-loop that ensures you always balance “what’s out there” with “what you already know” before moving on.
2. Prediction-Error Check (Central Fork & Central Hub)
What happens
Your brain computes a “surprise meter,” the free-energy gap
which measures how far actual outcomes (Fₜ) deviate from your expectations (F*).
Technical glossary: ΔF is essentially a prediction error—the difference between “what you thought would happen” and “what actually happened.” The salience network (anterior cingulate cortex + anterior insula) specialises in spotting these errors and sending control signals to adjust your plan .
Everyday example: You planned a 30-minute drive but live traffic adds 15 extra minutes. Because ΔF ≥ 0 (you’re behind schedule), your central fork raises a flag — prompting you to reconsider your route.
Neuroscience notes: Neuroscience shows ACC-insula activity spikes precisely when unexpected events occur — shifting attention and control before you act. This mirrors the G-Loop’s central hub role of detecting mismatches and steering you toward the next decision phase .
3. Compress
What happens
You’ve detected a surprise — now you boil it down into a clear insight or rule, and you update how confident you feel about your overall plan (your self-efficacy, η).
Technical glossary
δ–γ replay (delta–gamma): In your hippocampus, slow delta waves nest faster gamma bursts to replay recent experiences — this lets you sift through what just happened and identify the key pattern.
φ-embedding: A compact “code” for that key pattern — think of it as a mental label or shortcut for a complex sequence.
Self-efficacy (η): Your internal confidence meter. You calculate it by comparing how surprised you were (the new evidence) against what you expected — if the new rule fits well, η goes up.
Everyday example
During your drive, you discover a back-road shortcut that shaves off five minutes. In this Compress phase you:
Replay & distill: Mentally replay the segment and ask, “What made that work?”
Form a rule: Create the simple takeaway — “Always take County Road B when traffic’s heavy.”
Boost confidence: Your η ticks upward because this rule reliably saves you time.
Neuroscience notes
Hippocampal δ–γ replay builds low-dimensional map codes that capture relational shortcuts.
Prefrontal θ–γ circuits track how much evidence supports each rule and prune away ones that don’t help — so you only keep the most useful shortcuts.
4. Decision: Autopilot vs Exploit vs Explore
What happens
Your brain’s central fork now picks one of three modes based on how confident or uncertain you feel:
Autopilot (Shaft):
If surprises have been minimal, you stick to your well-practiced routine—no need to rethink your plan.Exploit (Left Fork):
When your confidence (η) is high — you know your rule works — you seize small advantages (like a green-light stretch) and dive straight in. This uses D₁/LTP mechanisms to sharpen focus on proven strategies.Explore (Right Fork):
When your uncertainty (χ) is high — you’re not sure your plan will hold—you broaden your search for new options (like finding an alternate café). This taps D₂/LTD processes to loosen existing patterns and encourage creative trial-and-error.
Technical glossary
Self-efficacy (η): Your confidence meter — how strongly you believe a rule or strategy will succeed.
Meta-uncertainty (χ): Your “inner tug-of-war” meter — how much disagreement or doubt you feel between different options.
D₁-mediated LTP: Dopamine D1 receptor activity that strengthens synapses, boosting focus on known strategies (Exploit).
D₂-mediated LTD: Dopamine D2 receptor activity that weakens old patterns, making room for new ideas (Explore).
Everyday example
You’re at Town B, and traffic’s been smooth so far (eta η high, chi χ low):
Autopilot: You follow your usual highway route unchanged.
Suddenly, the GPS shows a clear side road that shaved five minutes yesterday—your confidence in that shortcut is high (eta high), so you Exploit it.
If, however, that shortcut had led to a dead end yesterday (chi high), you’d Explore instead — maybe scan your map for a completely different route.
Neuroscience notes
In the prefrontal cortex, θ–γ oscillations maintain and apply rules. Phasic dopamine bursts at D₁ receptors trigger LTP to exploit proven strategies, while bursts at D₂ receptors induce LTD, breaking old patterns to explore new ones. This split enables your brain to fluidly switch between reliable habits and creative search.
5. Execute (Left or Right Fork)
What happens
You carry out the action dictated by your chosen mode:
Exploit (Left Fork):
You apply your proven shortcut or strategy exactly — staying on the fast highway, arriving early, and using the extra time for a more relaxed lunch.Explore (Right Fork):
You experiment with new options — taking the exit ramp to try side streets, mentally replaying different turns to see which might connect you fastest to your next stop.
Afterward, you may use quick mental tools — drawing a simple sketch, making a pros/cons list, or framing an analogy (“this route is like a maze”) — to keep track of what’s working and what’s not.
Technical glossary
θ–γ binding: Fast oscillations in the prefrontal cortex that hold and execute the chosen rule or plan in working memory.
δ–γ replay: Slow delta waves nesting gamma bursts in the hippocampus that simulate and evaluate new route options.
Vector-based relational reasoning: Treating places as points in a mental map and calculating “A to C” shortcuts by subtracting their position vectors.
Everyday example
Exploit: You follow the back-road shortcut you learned yesterday, breeze past traffic, and arrive at Town C with time to spare.
Explore: You remember a tip about a scenic detour, take it, and mentally test in your mind whether it could save time on future trips.
Neuroscience notes
Exploit: PFC θ–γ loops sustain and apply your chosen rule, strengthening the synapses that represent that plan.
Explore: Hippocampal δ–γ replay runs “mental simulations” of new paths, using pattern reactivation to imagine and evaluate alternative routes.
6. Meta-Cognitive Binding (Central Hub)
What happens
After you’ve tried a path or shortcut, you step back and ask, “Does this all add up?”
Low χ (uncertainty): Your mental signals agree — time savings, effort, and enjoyment all line up — so you lock in that plan.
High χ: You still feel doubts or conflicts—maybe the shortcut saved time but felt stressful — so you pause, gather more information, or even consult a friend before deciding.
Technical glossary
Meta-uncertainty (χ): Your brain’s “inner tug-of-war” meter — how much disagreement there is among different impressions (logic, gut feeling, memory).
Meta-cognitive binding: The process of unifying or “binding” multiple streams of information into a single coherent decision.
β-bursts (beta oscillations): Synchronised brain waves (~15–30 Hz) in the salience network that help stitch together competing signals into a unified choice.
Everyday example: You test the back-road shortcut: it does save five minutes, but it’s narrow and winding. Your logic says, “Great time savings,” but your gut says, “That was stressful.” High χ means you hesitate — maybe you check Google Maps or call a friend for advice — before making it your default.
Neuroscience notes: When uncertainty is low, beta bursts in the anterior cingulate and insula synchronise with prefrontal and parietal regions, rapidly binding your chosen plan into a coherent whole. If uncertainty remains high, reduced beta synchrony keeps options open, prompting further evidence gathering before commitment .
7. Consolidation & Meta-Gate Update (Shaft)
What happens
Once you’ve bound your decision, your brain locks the successful bits into long-term storage:
Hippocampal (δ–γ) → Gc:
Slow delta-gamma replay reinforces the new map fragments and updates your successor-representation—the mental shortcuts that predict “where to go next.” Synaptic scaling then cements these φ-vectors into your permanent cognitive map, turning fresh experiences into lasting relational knowledge.PFC (θ–γ) → Gc:
In parallel, the prefrontal cortex takes any simple rules or affordances you held in working memory and transforms them into durable “if–then” heuristics. It adjusts your confidence (η) and uncertainty thresholds (χ), pruning away fleeting gating settings so that only proven strategies stick around.
Technical glossary
Synaptic scaling: A cellular process that strengthens or weakens many synapses uniformly, preserving relative patterns while solidifying new memories.
Successor Representation (SR): A predictive map that encodes not just “where you are,” but “where you’ll likely go next,” enabling rapid shortcut planning.
Affordance: A simple action rule (e.g., “if the light turns green, go”) that your PFC formats into a lasting heuristic.
Everyday example
Your back-road shortcut worked smoothly each time you tested it. In this Consolidation phase you:
Map update: Your hippocampus integrates that shortcut into your default route map — so next time it’s already there.
Rule locking: Your PFC ingests the rule “take County Road B under heavy traffic” and transforms it into an automatic “if traffic > 8 mph, then exit” heuristic.
If, however, the café detour once wasted half an hour, that path and rule quietly fade from your go-to strategies.
Neuroscience notes
Hippocampal δ–γ replay during rest or downtime “rehearses” the new route, and synaptic scaling locks those changes into long-term circuits.
PFC θ–γ oscillations sequentially bind and then release rule-representations, updating η/χ so that only the most reliable affordances survive as lasting heuristics.
8. Loop Reset & Next Cycle (Central Hub & Fork)
What happens
Your self-efficacy (η) and uncertainty (χ) slowly drift toward their new baselines, based on the last round’s successes and surprises.
The central fork and central hub re-arm: excitability and salience thresholds reset so you’re fresh for whatever comes next.
Technical glossary
α-phase alignment: The timing of alpha oscillations in cortex resets, gating when sensory inputs versus top-down predictions have priority.
Homeostatic drift: A slow return of dopamine tone and meta-gate sensitivity toward equilibrium, preventing over-commitment or perpetual doubt.
Edge of criticality: The sweet-spot region where your system balances order (autopilot) and flexibility (explore) for optimal adaptation.
Everyday example: You finish touring Town C and reload your map app. Your “green-light” confidence and “detour” uncertainty now reflect yesterday’s lessons — so when you next hit traffic or spot a scenic route, you’ll tap the right mode without thinking twice.
Neuroscience notes
Alpha resets in parietal cortex realign feedforward vs. feedback dominance for the new cycle.
Tonic dopamine levels (D1/D2 balance) drift back to homeostasis, setting fresh η/χ thresholds.
This rhythmic self-tuning keeps you poised at the critical edge — never stuck in rigid routine nor lost in endless exploration — so you stay both reliable and inventive.
Summary
In the G-Loop, “Sense & Move” (shaft + central fork) gathers facts and grounds your plan; “Prediction-Error Check” (central hub) gauges surprises via free-energy gaps; “Compress” distills those surprises into concise mental take-aways and updates your self-efficacy (η); “Decision” branches into Autopilot, Exploit or Explore based on η and uncertainty (χ); “Execute” wields the corresponding fork for precise follow-through or creative exploration; “Meta-Cognitive Binding” checks overall coherence; “Consolidation” locks new map-chunks and rule-bundles into your long-term store (Gc) and updates η/χ; then the loop resets for the next cycle.
Key Insights
Fluid Intelligence: Rapidly switching forks in response to surprise.
Crystallised Intelligence: Reliably using the shaft for familiar routines.
Critical Intelligence: Balancing at the hub to maximise your adaptive “sweet spot” - the Psi Ψ Band.
Use this ‘wielding the trident’ framework to navigate tasks that blend hippocampal relational mapping with PFC rule application — flowing seamlessly from spatial inference to logical planning for peak performance.
More - and simpler - examples using this loop will be available to paid subscribers.