Why argmax locked. The bigram table has 212 nonzero cells of 729, so most neighbours score exactly zero. Argmax never takes a lower-probability step, so it finds a local cycle of high-frequency pairs and cannot leave. Measured: 7 distinct cells in 400 steps, 0.6% of the container. Switch mode to argmax and watch it happen.
What the spinor changes. The agent carries a phase φ that advances by a random increment each step and wraps at 4π, not 2π. Heading is φ/2, so a full 2π of heading takes 4π of phase — the double cover. The spin badge flips sign halfway through, which is the property that makes it a spinor rather than a vector: rotate it once around and it comes back inverted, twice around and it comes back itself.
Three planes, selected by where the phase sits. LOCAL walks to a neighbour weighted by probability and alignment with the heading. JUMP samples the next letter from the row and teleports to any cell holding it — a move through token space rather than grid space. BALLISTIC ignores probability entirely and travels along the heading, wrapping at the edges. Rotating between them is what breaks the lock.
Measured: spinor reaches 330 distinct cells in 400 steps, 30.6%, against argmax's 7. The escape does not come from better scoring. It comes from admitting a signal the loop does not generate itself.