mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Digital Metabolism: Decoupling Logic from Facts via Regenerative Unlearning -- Towards a Pure Neural Logic Core

arXiv 2601.10810 ↗First posted 15 Jan 2026cs.LG cs.AIcited by 0

On the map: LLM reasoning → Test-time compute and efficient thinking

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Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models (LLMs) currently suffer from parameter entanglement, where general reasoning capabilities (logic) and specific factual knowledge (facts) exist in a superposition state within shared weights. This coupling leads to the "memory wall," where computational capacity is squandered on simulating retrieval, often resulting in hallucinations. In this paper, we propose "digital metabolism," a thermodynamic hypothesis suggesting that targeted forgetting is necessary for distilling a pure neural logic core. To validate this hypothesis, we introduce the Regenerative Logic-Core Protocol (RLCP), a dual-stream training framework that renders specific factual dependencies linearly undecodable via deep-layer gradient reversal. Applying RLCP to Qwen2.5-0.5B, we observe a distinct phase transition: the model achieves near-zero retention of targeted factual associations (Accuracy < 7%) while exhibiting changes consistent with an emergent "structural crystallization" effect. Empirical analysis on GSM8K reveals that the "metabolized" model spontaneously adopts chain-of-thought (CoT) scaffolding, which we interpret as compensating for the loss of direct associative recall (shifting from O(1) recall to O(N) reasoning). While the causal mechanism underlying this behavioral shift requires further investigation, our findings provide a dynamic weight-level counterpart to architectural innovations like DeepSeek's Engram, paving the way for modular "Neural CPU + Symbolic RAM" architectures.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Test-time compute and efficient thinking, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 7 of its 12 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Jan 2026.

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References · 7

  1. 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Taskscited by 9,297
  2. 2020Scaling Laws for Neural Language Modelscited by 6,586
  3. 2022Locating and Editing Factual Associations in GPTcited by 2,691
  4. 2022Survey of Hallucination in Natural Language Generationcited by 2,075
  5. 2022Toy Models of Superpositioncited by 971
  6. 2023The Reversal Curse: LLMs trained on "A is B" fail to learn "B is A"cited by 407
  7. 2026Conditional Memory via Scalable Lookup: A New Axis of Sparsity for Large Language Modelscited by 86

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  1. 2026Making LLMs Truly Forget: Deep Unlearning by Searching, Selecting, and Severing Knowledge Paths
  2. 2026Why Limit the Residual Stream to Layers and Not Tokens? Persistent Memory for Continuous Latent Reasoning
  3. 2026MetaState: Persistent Working Memory Enhances Reasoning in Discrete Diffusion Language Models
  4. 2026REDaCT: Collapse-Free Unlearning in Large Reasoning Models
  5. 2026Dual-Layer Agentic Memory with Fast Write Routing and Slow Consolidation
  6. 2026State commitment learning: training language models to distinguish computation from memory
  7. 2026Reasoning as Attractor Dynamics: Latent Memory Retrieval via Gibbs-Weighted Energy Minimization
  8. 2026GUARD: Natural Forgetting in Large Reasoning Models via Guided Answer-Reasoning Distillation