Architecture

Architecture Overview

This page describes the high-level architecture of CORTEX and the major subsystems.

The Three Living Regions

CORTEX models three biological brain regions working in concert:

• Hippocampus — Fast associative encoding and incremental prototype construction.
• Cortex — Intelligent routing, dialectical retrieval, and coherence.
• Daydreamer — Background consolidation and maintenance.

Each region is responsible for a distinct phase of the memory lifecycle. Together they form a pipeline from ingestion through retrieval.

Core Concepts

Medoid vs. Centroid vs. Metroid

• Medoid — An actual memory node (page) selected as the representative of a cluster.
• Centroid — A computed geometric average (never stored as a real node).
• Metroid — A transient, structured dialectical search probe ({ m1, m2, c }) used at query time.

How the subsystems interact

1. Ingestion: Hippocampus embeds content and creates/update prototypes.
2. Retrieval: Cortex constructs Metroids and performs dialectical search for coherent context.
3. Consolidation: Daydreamer updates prototypes, prunes edges, and maintains stability.

For the full algorithmic detail, see Retrieval & Metroid Algorithm.