A hidden direction becomes a developmental force.
We learned a direction from each system's own untouched past, then moved its hidden composition forward, backward, or sideways without changing the visible field. Between q8 and q12, the native direction becomes much more causally potent.
Faint compass at q8
The native sign already beats the sideways sign when averaged over the first 128 future steps.
Ignition by q12
Nearly twice the q8 specific strength, with every one of 16 family means aligned.
Sustained window
The direction remains strongly causal through q16 and q20, then loosens again by q24.
The causal compass rises, holds, then relaxes.
The plotted quantity is deliberately positive: how much more compaction the native forward/reverse axis produces than the equal-energy orthogonal forward/reverse axis. It is a causal direction-specificity measure, not just a difference between two arbitrary perturbations.
The q12 rise is not a bigger shove
q8 receives the largest naturalized hidden-state dose (0.0351) yet produces the weakest early causal specificity. q12 uses roughly half that energy (0.0183) and produces almost twice the effect. The system changed—not merely the dose.
The rise from q8 to q12 is 0.059, and its family interval stays above zero. The later fall from q20 to q24 is +0.066, with interval +0.012 to +0.116. This is a window, not a monotonic accumulation.
The body is still changing while its causal direction organizes.
One mechanically median organism, shown untouched at each intervention age. Beneath it: two invisible q12 state moves unfolding into visibly different futures.
Forward from q12
Reverse from q12
Source 63, selected as the organism nearest the cohort-median q12 direction-specific early-window effect. No image was selected for visual drama. Starting visible fields were identical across all five conditions; frames above are later consequences.
A causal order parameter for becoming organism-like.
The young ecology does not merely acquire a recognizable shape. It acquires a privileged internal direction: a way of changing that has more leverage over its own later form than an equal-sized sideways change.
Closest link to causal emergence
A global developmental coordinate becomes selectively consequential before the later morphology has stabilized. That is exactly the sort of early organization we have been looking for: not a replicator label, but a causal geometry that precedes and controls form.
New biological question
What happens around q8→q12? Component consolidation, founder-coordinate locking, internal phase synchronization, boundary closure, or some combination may be the visible and compositional face of the ignition.
Watch the ignition happen.
The next experiment should densely sample q6→q14 and measure the spontaneous internal transition itself, not just its causal consequences. Then we intervene immediately before and after the turn.
Track native-direction strength, whole-versus-part predictive structure, founder-coordinate coupling, component consolidation, boundary closure, and phase synchrony on the same untouched developmental movie. Locate the turning point per organism. Then ask whether moving the hidden state across that point advances the birth of the coherent body—and moving backward delays it.