Ted’s Law of Karma
The covariance structure of entropy streams reveals the shared fate of interdependent systems.
📄 Full Preprint (PDF): /papers/ted-law-karma.pdf
The Observation
Every subsystem carries uncertainty — in operations we measure it as entropy.
When entropy streams across many subsystems are collected and their covariance is computed, something remarkable emerges:
- Most of the time, uncertainties wander independently.
- Sometimes, entropies align — covariance spikes.
- The largest eigenvalue of the covariance matrix exposes a shared mode of uncertainty, a systemic “fate.”
The Claim
This pattern is not confined to infrastructure. It is a universal principle:
Karma is the alignment of uncertainty.
What traditions call “karma” — the ripple of actions across a system — is mathematically visible as the covariance of entropies.
In practice, it shows up as eigenmodes of risk.
The Implications
- For SREs: Tracking λ₁ and logdetΣ across entropy streams yields early warnings before incidents manifest.
- For Complex Systems: Eigenmodes of uncertainty describe how local noise amplifies into global cascades.
- For Philosophy: Karma is not mystical bookkeeping — it is interdependence, written in the language of information.
📄 Download the full preprint: /papers/ted-law-karma.pdf