---
slug: substrate_multiplexed_context_switching
name: Substrate-Multiplexed Context Switching
one_liner: "One substrate hosts several disjoint, context-keyed configurations and switches discretely among them on a recognition cue, preserving the inactive ones intact for later re-entry."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, computational, cognitive]
origin_domain: systems_and_resource_sharing
alternate_origin_domains: [neuroscience, operating_systems, telecommunications]
aliases: [time_multiplexing, cue_triggered_mode_switching, context_keyed_reconfiguration, shared_substrate_paging, discrete_state_re_entry]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `remapping` (lift: strip the neural/cognitive framing and the 'representation' vocabulary, leaving the bare form 'one substrate, many context-keyed configurations, discrete cue-driven switch, inactive ones preserved'). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B candidate. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut. Flag: claimed distinct from `substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment` (siblings: TV tuner, OS virtual desktops, chameleon color cycling) — the distinctness of that boundary is the load-bearing keep/cut question."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `remapping` (the input) and `substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment` (named near-neighbor); confirm it is a genuine genus (covers remapping AND the tuner/virtual-desktop/chameleon siblings) and is not a restatement of remapping nor an alias of substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment; draw a subsumption edge remapping→candidate + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The bare form — a single shared substrate that holds several mutually-disjoint configurations, is switched among them by a discrete recognition cue rather than a gradual update, and preserves the inactive configurations intact so any can be re-entered — is a clean, medium-neutral relational structure. It carries no domain content of its own: time-division multiplexing in telecom, virtual-desktop / process paging in operating systems, channel tuning in a receiver, and neural context remapping all instantiate the identical skeleton on utterly different media (silicon, physical receiver, biological tissue). That breadth and the absence of value-laden or practice-bound content push it above its framed input `remapping`, which is scored around 3 as a cognition-flavored species. Held at 4 rather than 5 only because the "discrete, cue-triggered, preservation-of-inactive" trio is a fairly specific conjunction; a fully generic "shared resource, many uses" pattern would be broader but would lose exactly what makes this a distinct genus.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: remapping
  similarity: 0.7
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.24
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.9, evaluative_weight: 0.0, institutional_origin: 0.1, human_practice_bound: 0.1, import_vs_recognize: 0.1}
  rationale: 'The pattern is recognized as a bare structure across substrates rather than imported as a doctrine: its vocabulary (substrate, configuration, cue, switch, re-entry) travels cleanly and carries no evaluative weight — it describes a mechanism, not a good or bad thing. It has no single institutional home; the same form is named independently in telecom (multiplexing), OS design (context switch / paging), and neuroscience (remapping), which is the signature of a structural rather than framed prime. Estimate sits near the structural pole.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Substrate-Multiplexed Context Switching

## Core Idea

Substrate-multiplexed context switching is the bare structure in which *one physical or logical substrate hosts several disjoint, context-keyed configurations and moves discretely among them when a recognition cue fires*, keeping every inactive configuration intact so it can be re-entered later without reconstruction. The one constraint stripped from the input `remapping` to reach this genus is the *cognitive/neural framing and its "representation" vocabulary*: remapping is a species phrased in terms of neural populations holding context-keyed representations, but nothing in the load-bearing form requires that the substrate be neural or that the stored configurations be representations. What remains is a scheduling-and-storage relation over an arbitrary shared medium.

The anatomy has four load-bearing parts. First, a *single shared substrate* — the same units are reused across configurations rather than each configuration getting its own dedicated hardware. Second, a *set of disjoint, context-keyed configurations* — mutually distinct states, each associated with a context tag. Third, a *discrete, cue-driven switch* — the transition from one configuration to another is triggered by recognition of a context cue and is a jump, not a gradual overwrite. Fourth, *preservation of the inactive* — configurations not currently loaded are held intact for later re-entry, which is what distinguishes multiplexing from mere overwriting. The characteristic payoff is *economy*: one substrate does the work of many by time-sharing, so a scarce medium serves an unbounded catalog of contexts. The characteristic cost is *switching overhead and interference*: only one configuration is live at a time (so latency and thrashing appear when cues arrive faster than the substrate can switch), and imperfect isolation lets configurations bleed into one another — the exact failure the "disjoint" and "preserved" requirements are meant to prevent.

Read structurally, the same move recurs on wildly unlike media. A *TV or radio tuner* uses one physical receiver to host many broadcast streams, switching among them on a channel-selection cue while the other channels remain available on re-entry. An *operating system's virtual desktops* share one screen and one input focus, paging whole workspace configurations in and out on a keystroke cue, each preserved as you left it. A *chameleon's skin* cycles a single organ among several fixed color patterns triggered by environmental cues. And the input, *neural remapping*, runs the identical form in cortical tissue. These substrates — a receiver, an OS, a biological organ, a brain — share nothing but the skeleton: one medium, many context-keyed states, a discrete cue-driven switch, and the losers preserved rather than destroyed. That is the sign the lift is real and not a restatement of any one instance.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed genus of `remapping`, by stripping the neural/cognitive framing and the "representation" vocabulary to expose a substrate-agnostic multiplexing structure. Surfaced in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03. It claimed the siblings *TV/radio tuner*, *OS virtual desktops*, and *chameleon color cycling* as structurally-unlike co-species. Manifest tier: B (remaining-strata, `crank/sweep_op05_rest.jsonl` + `manifest_op05_rest.yaml`).

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: the four-part conjunction (shared substrate, disjoint context-keyed configs, discrete cue-driven switch, preserved inactive) is a recognizable engineering-and-biology pattern with independent names in at least three fields — time-division multiplexing, OS context switch/paging, and channel tuning — which is a genuine cross-domain genus signature rather than a one-off coinage, and the siblings do span media that share nothing but the form. The RISKS Kurt should weigh, stated plainly: (1) **coinage-vs-established-genus** — this is Tier B and the *name* is a fresh coinage; the underlying pattern is real but has no single canonical label, so the question is whether the corpus wants the genus-level abstraction or is content with `remapping` plus a note. (2) **restatement of the input** — similarity to `remapping` is estimated high (~0.7); the honest worry is that "strip the neural framing" produces the same structure remapping already describes in domain-neutral prose, i.e. remapping was *already* the genus and this is a rename, not a lift. (3) **alias of `substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment`** — the operator flagged this candidate as distinct from that near-neighbor, but the boundary (recruiting a behavior on a cue vs. switching among preserved configurations on a cue) is subtle; if they collapse, this is an alias. Sharp keep/cut question for Kurt: **does "one substrate, many preserved context-keyed configurations, discrete cue-switch" name something that `remapping` does not already cover once remapping is read structurally — and is it separable from `substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment`?** If both answers are no, cut as restatement/alias.

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `remapping` (input) and `substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment` (near-neighbor); if it survives, draw a subsumption edge `remapping → substrate_multiplexed_context_switching` and sibling/instance notes for the tuner, virtual-desktop, and chameleon cases, plus a proposed sibling edge to `substrate_cued_behavior_recruitment` marking the deliberate boundary. Missing-edge note: if kept, remapping currently has no genus parent of this shape — that edge is the densification value. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
