Gap 1 — EM-field causal efficacy, and the stress test it survived

Gap 1 asks whether the EM field is causally necessary for coordination, or merely correlated. The fill is a causal window: field off gives an access floor, the field at measured strength opens an access window, and over-driving collapses access while arousal keeps rising. ST-1 swept 36 cells and the window was sign-stable on every one.

Across the engine the pervasive open marker was that the EM field's causal role is predicted, not shown. Gap 1 fills it in-silico with a causal window — off → access floor (R = 0.04, PCI = 0), measured → window open (R = 0.39, PCI = 0.118), over-driven → access collapses (R = 0.54, PCI = 0.110). ST-1 attacked the exact code across 36 cells (3 seed cohorts × 3 durations × 4 perturbation nodes); necessity, over-drive collapse, and the arousal/access dissociation are all sign-stable. The peak sits ~3× above the measured coupling, so “criticality at measured” stays [O]; the in-vivo cancel/augment test is owed.

The gap: a causal role predicted, not shown

The full mechanism chain runs across twenty-one modules, but one open marker is pervasive: the EM field's causal contribution to coordination is predicted, not demonstrated. Sim 1 couples organs by the measured ephaptic near-field and shows coordination emerges, but it does not establish that the field is causally necessary rather than an epiphenomenon riding on the dynamics.

The fill: a causal window

Gap 1 fills this in-silico by manipulating the field directly. With the field off there is no coordination and access sits on the floor (order parameter R = 0.04, PCI = 0). With the field at its measured strength, coordination becomes metastable and an access window opens (R = 0.39, PCI = 0.118). Over-driven, activity is high but access collapses (R = 0.54, PCI = 0.110) — arousal and access come apart, the vegetative/seizure signature. This is an in-silico prediction; the in-vivo cancel/augment test is owed.

ST-1: the stress test designed to break it

The break ST-1 was designed to cause is that the in-silico causal window is an operating-point artifact — that it flips, or is seed-specific. Had that happened, Gap 1 would revert to [O], the “field is causally necessary” claim would be withdrawn, and the coordination layer would be re-examined. The test module imports the exact Gap-1 perturbational-complexity routine (non-circular: it attacks the real code, not a re-implementation), asserts the engine anchor bit-for-bit on every run, and carries new_tuned_constants = 0.

The sweep and the three signed features

The sweep is 3 seed cohorts (C1 19–22, C2 23–26, C3 27–30) × 3 durations (0.4 / 0.6 / 1.0 s) × 4 perturbation nodes (neocortex, thalamus, hippocampus, striatum) = 36 cells, each running the full coupling curve [0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8] × measured κ (κ = 0.5496) with an absolute PCI margin of 0.012. Each cell yields three signed, falsifiable features, and a feature is believed only if it is sign-stable across all 36 cells.

The window survived: window_sign_stable = True, broke_on = []. The three ambiguous cells are the short-duration (0.4 s) runs with a tiny arousal wiggle — not contradictions, but confirmation that the classifier is not rubber-stamping.

Baseline reproduction

For the baseline cohort (C1∪C2 = seeds 19–26, T = 0.6, neocortex), access (PCI) and arousal (activity) against coupling × κ:

Access rises, peaks in the interior, and collapses; arousal rises monotonically throughout — the vegetative/seizure dissociation, sign-stable.

What survived, and what stays open

Gap 1 is graded [L] in-silico: the causal window survives stress. The preserved honest residual, unchanged from the build, is that the peak sits above the measured coupling (≈3×), so “criticality at the measured coupling” remains [O]. What ST-1 established is the dissociation and window shape, not the peak location. The in-vivo test — actually cancelling or augmenting the field in living tissue — is still owed.

Firewall (Axis-A). Every quantity on this page is a structural quantity of an in-silico model — a sign, a margin, an ordering — and is not a felt state, an experienced quality, or a level of consciousness (consciousness_claim = 0; the hard problem stays open, hard_problem_open = 1). These are model results, not validated neuroscience and not clinical guidance. efficacy = 0; not medical advice.