I. Introduction: The Silence After the Noise The year began with a promise—a loud, confident assertion that we were finally closing in. The scanners were higher resolution; the datasets were massive; the adversarial teams were assembled like armies on a border. 2025 was supposed to be the year we finally pinned the butterfly to the board, labeled its parts, and explained exactly how the meat of the brain spins itself into the magic of the mind. We wanted a coronation. We got