Local hidden composition redirects development without changing either shape or bulk composition.
PURE PATTERN TRANSFER → EXPANSION
movement toward the expansive donor future · 95% CI [+0.102, +0.484] · 12/16 positive families
PURE PATTERN TRANSFER → COMPACTIFICATION
movement toward the compact donor future · 95% CI [+0.281, +0.614] · 15/16 positive families
We moved only the relative spatial arrangement of channel composition. Total visible matter stayed identical at every pixel. Global channel balance stayed at the host value. The autonomous future still bent toward the donor.
Development is a surface, not a one-dimensional dose response.
Move horizontally: change the hidden spatial pattern while holding bulk balance fixed. Move vertically: change bulk channel balance while preserving pattern identity.
The cleanest edge is the top one: donor pattern at host balance. Changing only global balance with the host pattern preserved is much weaker and its intervals cross zero in both directions.
The compactifying pattern works best inside the host’s global context.
DONOR PATTERN · HOST BALANCE
[+0.281, +0.614] toward compactification.
SAME PATTERN · DONOR BALANCE
[-0.211, +0.237]; the incremental pattern effect nearly vanishes.
The corner interaction is -0.432 [-0.668, -0.226]. Copying more of the donor is not always better. The local pattern is interpreted relative to the receiver’s global composition.
This is a relational code: the same map has different causal meaning in a different bulk state. The strongest compactifying region sits near donor spatial identity but host or lightly shifted global balance—not at the wholesale donor corner.
Compactification answers early. Expansion reveals itself later.
COMPACTIFICATION
Already positive at step 16: +0.179 [+0.007, +0.333]. It then grows to +0.447 by step 128.
EXPANSION
The spatial signal is initially subtle and becomes clear late: +0.299 at step 112 and +0.292 at step 128.
The hidden intervention acts before its full morphological consequence is visible—and different directions have different developmental latency.
We have found a causal, pre-morphological state variable.
NOT SHAPE
The visible matter field is exactly unchanged at the intervention.
NOT BULK AMOUNT
The strongest test holds global channel balance exactly at the host value.
ORGANIZED RELATION
Only the spatial allocation between hidden channels is changed, and the later form responds.
This is the strongest bridge yet between the causal-emergence program and organism formation in Flow Lenia. The relevant precursor is not merely a scalar that rises before a form appears. It is an organized hidden field with direct causal leverage over which morphology emerges next.
It also gives a concrete meaning to “pattern space”: the receiving body reads a distributed compositional pattern, and that pattern biases its future without being a visible body itself.
Decode the spatial language.
The next experiment should find the minimum spatial structure that still turns the future.