Hierarchical Concepts Under Finite Resolution: Observation Quotients and Adaptive Symmetry Brian Theory 29 September 2026 Abstract An ultrametric hierarchy does not itself make distinct states indistinguishable: its metric topology is Hausdorff. Indistinguishability instead requires an observation map. This note gives a self-containedsynthesisofthedistinctionforfiniteballpartitions. Asinglequotientsimultaneously describes the partition topology, its Kolmogorov quotient, and the metric identification of a distance-preserving ultrapseudometric collapse. Resolution towers recover a compact space, and recover the completion when only total boundedness is assumed. For the full regular rooted tree, we give an exact adaptive refinement index and characterize when the corresponding stabilizer inclusion is normal. This separates a finite index, which always exists, from a quotient group, which need not. A short information calculation also separates symmetry index from entropy gain. The underlying topology, tree theory, and quotient constructions are standard; the purpose is a precise correction and synthesis, not a claim of a new general theory. The connection with ultrametric models of cognition is restricted to class-relative observability and does not formalize Matte-Blanco’s full bi-logic or establish an empirical model of consciousness. 1 The distinction and the main statements A node of a rooted tree can represent a category by the set of branches passing through it. This interpretation is established in thep-adic andm-adic mental-space literature. In particular, Khrennikov’s [10, Section 4] associations are already fixed-prefix equivalence classes. Earlier subconscious and memory models also use non-Archimedean state spaces [9, 1]. The present note does not introduce either hierarchy or equivalence classes into that literature. The point requiring care is the passage fromsimilarity to inability to distinguish. An ultrametric is a metric, so different points have disjoint sufficiently small neighborhoods. Equal distances from an external point do not make those points identical or topologically indistinguishable. Lauro-Grotto [12, pp. 537–539] links clusters with symmetrization and invokes the perception of distant objects. Here that observational restriction is made explicit by a map; it does not follow from ultrametricity alone. An inference of indiscreteness from ultrametricity in the author’s thesis [4] is not valid. Nor is the broad two-layer architecture new. Khrennikov and Yurova [8, Sections 4 and 9] combine an observational quotient with ap-adic or ultrametric latent space in a protein model. Kleiner [11, Sections 3.3–3.4] uses automorphism-orbit quotients to describe accessible references to experience. These are different models, but they preclude treating “latent state, restricted observations, equivalence classes” as a distinctive invention here. We isolate two useful precise statements. First, ifP is a finite partition of an ultrametric space into nonempty clopen balls, then dP(x,y ) = { 0, x,y belong to the same cell, d(x,y ), otherwise (1) 1 is an ultrapseudometric. Its zero classes and topological indistinguishability classes coincide with the classes defined by agreement under all cell-constant observables. The quotient is universal in the senses made precise in theorem 2.2. This is a synthesis of standard quotient constructions, not a new separation theorem. Second, consider the full rootedm-ary tree Tm, with vertices the finite words overΣm = {0,...,m−1}. A finite complete frontierF is a finite prefix-free set of words whose cylinders partition the infinite branches. LetI(F) be its proper prefixes, and letGF fix every vertex ofF individually. WriteF⪯F′when F′refinesF. Theorem 1.1 (Adaptive index and normality). Form≥2 and finite complete frontiersF⪯F′, put N =|I(F′)\I(F)|. Then GF∼= ∏ s∈F Aut(Tm), [GF :GF ′] = (m!)N. (2) MoreoverGF ′ is normal inGF if and only if, for everys∈F, there is an integerhs≥0 such that {t∈F′:s is a prefix oft}=sΣhs m. (3) In this case, withTm,h the full tree of heighth, GF/GF ′∼= ∏ s∈F Aut(Tm,hs). (4) The orbits ofGF on the boundary are exactly the cylinders indexed byF. The theorem is proved in section 4 using standard sections and stabilizers of full tree automor- phism groups [2, Sections 1.2.2–1.2.3]. Its role is to make the hypotheses of an adaptive “symmetry loss” statement explicit. Neither the uniform level-stabilizer formula nor the general group-theoretic mechanism is asserted to be original. 2 A coordinate-free observation quotient An ultrapseudometric on X is a mape : X×X→[0,∞) with e(x,x ) = 0, symmetry, and the ultrametric inequality; it may assign zero distance to different points. Throughout,X is nonempty. For a partitionP let q :X→Psend a point to its cell, and set τP ={q−1(A) :A⊆P}. This is thepartition topology, equivalently the initial topology induced byq into the discrete set P [7, Definition 1]. Its definition requires neither a metric nor a hierarchy. Every cell, with its subspace topology, is indiscrete. Lemma 2.1 (Separation of disjoint balls). If B,C are disjoint nonempty balls in an ultrametric space,d(x,y ) is constant onB×C. Proof. Forx,x′∈B and y /∈B, the ball inequality givesd(x,x′)< d(x,y ), for either an open or a closed ball. The strong triangle inequality in both directions impliesd(x′,y ) =d(x,y ). Repeat inside C. The singleton case is immediate. Theorem 2.2 (Finite ball quotient). LetP be a finite partition of an ultrametric space(X,d ) into nonempty clopen balls. DefineδP(B,B ) = 0 and, forB̸= C, defineδP(B,C ) = d(x,y ) for any x∈B,y ∈C. Then: 2 (i) δP is an ultrametric anddP =δP◦(q×q) is the ultrapseudometric in(1). Its topology isτP. (ii) q realizes both the Kolmogorov quotient of(X,τP) and the metric identification of(X,dP). For anyT0 spaceY, every continuousf : (X,τP)→Y factors uniquely throughq. (iii) For an arbitrary setY, the mapsX→Y constant on cells are exactly the maps¯f◦q. If Y is metric andf : (X,d )→Y is also nonexpansive, its unique factor¯f : (P,δP)→Y is nonexpansive. (iv) dP is the greatest pseudometrice≤d that vanishes on each cell. In particular, two points share a cell if and only if they have zerodP-distance, are topologically indistinguishable inτP, or agree under every cell-constant observable. Proof. The preceding lemma proves representative independence. Choose representatives from three cells and apply the ultrametric inequality inX; repeated cells cause no difficulty. Since the quotient is finite, its metric topology is discrete. Pullback therefore gives exactlyτP, with zero classes equal to the cells. Two points in the same cell belong to precisely the same open sets. Points in different cells are separated by those cells. A continuous map into a T0 space must identify topologically indistinguishable points: otherwise a target open set distinguishing their images would pull back to an open set distinguishing them. The factor exists and is unique becauseq is onto; it is continuous becauseP is discrete. This also identifies the quotient topology. The set-theoretic factorization is immediate. For different cellsB,C and representativesx,y, nonexpansiveness givesdY ( ¯f(B), ¯f(C))≤d(x,y ) = δP(B,C ). Finally, any admissiblee is zero inside cells and is at mostd =dP across cells. AsdP itself is admissible, it is greatest. Cell indicators show that equality under all cell-constant observables implies membership in the same cell. The topological and pseudometric identifications are established theory; see [19, Theorem 5.3]. The collapse is a special case of Ishiki’s pseudo-ultrametric amalgamation [6, Proposition 2.31], taking every within-cell pseudo-ultrametric to be zero. The useful geometric feature here is retaining all distances between resolved cells, not the existence of a quotient set. Example 2.3 (Why the ball condition matters). On binary words of length two used(x,y ) = 2−ℓ(x,y), whereℓis common-prefix length. Collapse the block{00, 10}while leaving{01}and{11}as singleton blocks. Formula (1) gives dP(10, 01) = 1> 0 + 1 2 =dP(10, 00) +dP(00, 01). An arbitrary partition still defines a partition topology, but this distance-preserving collapse need not even be a pseudometric. The ball hypothesis is sufficient, not necessary: every partition of an equilateral finite metric space admits such a collapse. Observable concepts at a fixed resolution form the finite Boolean algebra of all unions of cells. Individual balls are generally not closed under union or complement. In particular, introducing this observation algebra does not remove ordinary Boolean negation. 3 Resolution towers, distinguishing scales, and completion Let (X,d ) be a totally bounded ultrametric space, and chooser0≥diamX with r0>r 1>···> 0 and rk→0. Define x∼k y ⇐⇒d(x,y )≤rk, Pk =X/∼k, q k(x) = [x]k. 3 These are the closed-threshold quotients of Mémoli, Smith and Wan [15, Section 2.1, Equation (5) and Definition 10], with thresholdrk. The strong triangle inequality makes∼k transitive. Its classes are closedrk-balls, which are also open becauserk > 0. A finite cover by balls of radius less thanrk proves thatPk is finite. No regular branching assumption is needed. Proposition 3.1 (A calibrated tower). Letdk and τk arise fromPk as in theorem 2.2. Then 0≤d−dk≤rk, d k≤dk+1, τ k⊆τk+1. (5) The topology generated by⋃ kτk is thed-topology. Forx̸=y, ifκ(x,y ) = min{k≥1 :qk(x)̸=qk(y)}, then rκ(x,y)