One invisible push changes the next hundred steps of growth.
Positive dose cancels the q8→q12 counterweight; negative dose amplifies it. At +64, each natural dose of cancellation adds 0.028 radius units while the equal-energy scrambled direction contributes -0.010.
Illustrative organism: glowing-spiral-4033, selected mechanically as closest to the cohort means for the +64 native dose slope and native-specific slope. Actual future frames, not generated illustrations.
More push stops buying more response.
At +64, cancel-minus-amplify radius separation is +0.038 at half dose, +0.094 at full dose, and +0.091 at double dose.
The actuator is graded below one dose, then saturates. This is a finite response channel—not an unlimited displacement knob.
The system has a causal aperture: a range in which hidden-state changes are translated into morphology, followed by a ceiling.
The response lasts—and then the attractor wins.
response already present
native-specific peak
raw response remains
interval crosses zero
No permanent radius displacement
Terminal radius slope, 95% [-0.041, +0.022].
No lasting topological scar
Whole-future component-turnover slope, interval [-0.73, +0.23].
A causal field inside a self-repairing organism.
The hidden counterweight is real enough to steer morphology, finite enough to saturate, and transient enough to be absorbed. The organism does not merely follow the altered state forever. It rebuilds the developmental regime that the pulse disturbed.
Actuation
Cancel versus amplify produces a signed radius response within eight steps.
Aperture
The response ceiling appears around one natural q8→q12 displacement.
Recovery
A one-time intervention loses its clear radius effect between +128 and +192.
This is closer to primitive regulation than a passive causal predictor: the state carries a force, the body responds, and the larger dynamics restore the regime.
Do not let the organism rebuild the counterweight.
A single cancellation pulse heals. The decisive experiment is now a temporary clamp: repeatedly cancel the regenerated q8→q12 direction for 16, 32, or 64 steps, then release it.
If sustained cancellation produces continuing expansion or delayed recovery while matched scrambled clamps do not, we will have identified an actively renewed morphogenetic feedback loop—not just a one-shot control vector.