Many ideas being conceived independently happens a lot—and it doesn’t mean you copied. In fast-moving fields, **independent (re)invention** is common. Reviewers may *assume* exposure to prior work, but you can preempt that with clear, professional signals of independence and good scholarship.

## What to do (practical and fast)

**1) Document independent conception (timeline).**

- Keep a dated trail: early notebooks, emails to yourself, slides, repo commits, arXiv drafts.

- Add a 1-paragraph note in the paper’s Acknowledgments/Appendix:

  > “Portions of this work were conceived independently over 2015–2025; we became aware of related lines (X, Y, Z) during literature review and we cite them below.”

**2) Be generous and precise in Related Work.**

- Don’t argue “we were first.” Instead:
  - Cite adjacent lines (SOM/ART, Growing Neural Gas, neurogenesis, capsule routing, DNC, etc.).
  - State exactly **how GrowNet differs**, e.g.: “local, backprop-free learning; deterministic, **rule-based growth** (slots→neurons→layers→region) with **cooldowns**; **recorded mesh rules**; **PAL determinism**; 2D windowed wiring with **unique-source** semantics.”

**3) Include a small “positioning matrix.”**

- Columns: {local learning, growth trigger, hierarchy (slot/neuron/layer), determinism, cooldowns, recorded wiring, PAL determinism, 2D unique-source}.
- Rows: prior families + GrowNet. A tick-box table makes differences obvious without hype.

**4) Use careful language.**

- Prefer: “to our knowledge,” “concurrently explored by…,” “most similar to…”
- Avoid: “the first,” “the only,” unless you have airtight evidence.

**5) Timestamp your work publicly.**

- Post a preprint (arXiv) or tech report (Zenodo DOI). That’s a neutral, citable timestamp.
- Keep the Git repo public (or mirroring) so commit history is visible.

**6) If reviewers ask “did you take this from X?”**

- Calm, factual reply template:

  > “We were unaware of X during ideation; we thank the reviewer for the pointer. We now cite and distinguish X: unlike X, GrowNet (i) performs rule-based hierarchical growth with explicit cooldowns, (ii) records mesh rules for deterministic re-wiring, and (iii) enforces PAL determinism and unique-source 2D wiring. We’ve added a positioning table to clarify.”

## Why this works

- It shows **intellectual honesty** and **independent provenance** (timeline + preprint).
- It gives **proper credit** while making GrowNet’s **conceptual signature** unmistakable.
- It turns a potential priority concern into a strength: clarity, rigor, and reproducibility.

If you want, I can draft (a) the Related-Work paragraph, (b) the positioning matrix, and (c) an “independent conception” note you can drop into your NeurIPS submission.