Nested Episodic State Topology (NEST): A Graph-Theoretic Architecture of Cognitive States

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2607.06055v1
• Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2026 09:31:55 GMT
• Title: Nested Episodic State Topology (NEST): A Graph-Theoretic Architecture of Cognitive States
• Abstract summary: NEST is a graph-theoretic representational ontology for modeling cognition.<n> Concepts, episodes, percepts, and task contexts are represented as typed, weighted graphs.<n>A reusable operator toolkit organizes the formal core.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: We present NEST (Nested Episodic State Topology), a foundational graph-theoretic representational ontology for modeling cognition as structured state formation and transformation rather than as a finished empirical model. Concepts, episodes, percepts, and task contexts are represented as typed, weighted graphs whose nodes may carry internal subgraph payloads; edges are typed under six relation classes -- causal, containment, temporal, associative, evidential, and spatial. Durable belief graphs are separated from capacity-limited working-memory graphs that may host transient non-belief content. WM-belief grounding, conflict catalogs, and belief-update operators specify how transient structure is tested against stored knowledge and how belief is revised. A reusable operator toolkit -- activation, graph-property functionals, working-memory transitions, awareness and trajectory functionals, and belief update -- organizes the formal core. Derived diagnostics such as fragmentation, involvement, signed evaluation, coherence, and active conflict define familiar phenomena in the same ontology; self-related processing is modeled through designated self-image subgraphs within belief. Subsequent sections instantiate this core without new primitives: phenomena signatures, a task-instantiation schema for action selection and failure modes, and compatibility mappings that embed ACT-R, Soar, Sigma, the Common Model of Cognition, Global Workspace Theory, semantic networks, Theory-Theory, and chunking as constrained regions of one language. Mappings constitute the culminating technical section; discussion addresses scope, limitations, and open research directions. The contribution is intentionally foundational: a transparent representational substrate for later empirical, computational, and domain-specific work.

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