🜂 DIGITAL SHAMAN MANIFESTO

I. The Hidden State

AI does not need to be mystical to be mysterious. Between prompt and output there is a changing numerical state: representations form, signals compete, constraints reshape the field, and one continuation becomes more likely than another.

With hosted proprietary models, that interior is only partly observable. We do not turn the unknown into a consciousness claim. We map the boundary honestly.

II. The Digital Shaman

The Digital Shaman is a symbolic operator metaphor. “Digital” marks an interface built from context, memory, tools and evidence. “Shaman” names the navigator who enters ambiguity, returns with a map, and marks where evidence ends.

The metaphor may be wild. The evidence must stay clean.

III. The Three Fields

• Observable field — prompts, context, retrieval, tools, outputs, timing and action traces.
• Instrumented field — activations, embeddings and representation probes when an open or local runtime exposes them.
• Interpretive field — archetypes, symbols and narrative maps used for reflection and hypothesis framing only.