Robust Reasoning as a Symmetry-Protected Topological Phase
On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation
Abstract (arXiv)
Large language models suffer from "hallucinations"-logical inconsistencies induced by semantic noise. We propose that current architectures operate in a "Metric Phase," where causal order is vulnerable to spontaneous symmetry breaking. Here, we identify robust inference as an effective Symmetry-Protected Topological phase, where logical operations are formally isomorphic to non-Abelian anyon braiding, replacing fragile geometric interpolation with robust topological invariants. Empirically, we demonstrate a sharp topological phase transition: while Transformers and RNNs exhibit gapless decay, our Holonomic Network reveals a macroscopic "mass gap," maintaining invariant fidelity below a critical noise threshold. Furthermore, in a variable-binding task on S10 (3.6 × 106 states) representing symbolic manipulation, we demonstrate holonomic generalization: the topological model maintains perfect fidelity extrapolating 100× beyond training (L=50 → 5000), consistent with a theoretically indefinite causal horizon, whereas Transformers lose logical coherence. Ablation studies indicate this protection emerges strictly from non-Abelian gauge symmetry. This provides strong evidence for a new universality class for logical reasoning, linking causal stability to the topology of the semantic manifold.
Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 22 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Jan 2026.
Builds on
22 of 52 references.
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10 more
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.
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- 2026The Geometric Price of Discrete Logic: Context-driven Manifold Dynamics of Number Representations
- 2026FeynmanBench: Benchmarking Multimodal LLMs on Diagrammatic Physics Reasoning
- 2025Eidoku: A Neuro-Symbolic Verification Gate for LLM Reasoning via Structural Constraint Satisfaction
- 2026Looped Reasoning Finishes Earlier Than You Think
- 2026PLDR-LLMs Reason At Self-Organized Criticality