Fixed-age comparison · q8→q32

By q8, the future is already broad.

Here q8 means eight simulation passages after the seeded state, the first scheduled observation checkpoint after two pulses at +1 and +5. The four states produced by those routes were still close in visible geometry, but when we gave them the same later challenges, the mean separation among their q900 outcomes was about 4.3 times the mean separation among their q8 shapes; by q32, the earlier route had become more visible in present form, while its effect on the timing of later formation had narrowed.

What was fixed, and whenThe 39-organism cohort, pulse sequences, matching rule, checkpoints, and outcome measurements were fixed before any of these histories or outcomes were run, and the later continuation and challenge panel was frozen before any release or q900 run. Because the same 39 organisms appear at q8, q16, q24, and q32, the age curves describe changes within one cohort; they are not independent replications in four populations.
01 · comparison

Here q8 means eight passages after the seeded state.

It is a checkpoint fixed in advance, not a life stage inferred from appearance. For every organism we applied one pulse at passage +1 and another at +5, stopped the simulation at q8, q16, q24, or q32, matched four histories that ended at similar scores, and then gave the resulting states the same continuation and the same eight fixed challenges.

How the fixed-age comparison was made A seeded Flow Lenia field receives pulses at passages plus one and plus five, then is observed at q8, q16, q24, or q32. At every checkpoint, four histories that end at similar scores are released, given the same continuation and panel of eight challenges, and compared again at q900. seeded fieldsame genotypesame organism +1+5two pulses q8earliestscheduledcheckpointalso q16/24/32 high · holdhigh · looplow · holdlow · loop sharedcontinuationplus eightchallengesq900 release statescore-matched historiesq900 outcomes

The four histories first passed through a high or low score region, then either continued in that direction or looped back before release. The “action world” at one checkpoint is simply the set of q900 outcomes reached when those four matched states face the same continuation and challenge panel.

02 · one organism

Four q8 histories meet the same c04 challenge.

The matrix below uses s01, the first record in the frozen cohort, rather than a visually dramatic or outcome-selected example. Every q8 panel uses the same central 48×48 crop, with the complete 128×128 simulation field retained in the inset, and every lower panel shows the form reached at q900 under c04; these panels show one organism, while the numerical comparison below uses all 39 organisms and all nine later outcomes for each state.

High · hold

Enlarged fixed crop of the s01 High · hold Flow Lenia state at q8, showing its bright striped body; the inset shows the complete 128 by 128 field at true scale
q8 releasefixed 48×48 crop; full field inset
The grayscale Flow Lenia form reached by the s01 High · hold state at q900 after the shared c04 challenge
q900 outcomeshared c04 challenge

High · loop

Enlarged fixed crop of the s01 High · loop Flow Lenia state at q8, showing its bright striped body; the inset shows the complete 128 by 128 field at true scale
q8 releasefixed 48×48 crop; full field inset
The grayscale Flow Lenia form reached by the s01 High · loop state at q900 after the shared c04 challenge
q900 outcomeshared c04 challenge

Low · hold

Enlarged fixed crop of the s01 Low · hold Flow Lenia state at q8, showing its bright striped body; the inset shows the complete 128 by 128 field at true scale
q8 releasefixed 48×48 crop; full field inset
The grayscale Flow Lenia form reached by the s01 Low · hold state at q900 after the shared c04 challenge
q900 outcomeshared c04 challenge

Low · loop

Enlarged fixed crop of the s01 Low · loop Flow Lenia state at q8, showing its bright striped body; the inset shows the complete 128 by 128 field at true scale
q8 releasefixed 48×48 crop; full field inset
The grayscale Flow Lenia form reached by the s01 Low · loop state at q900 after the shared c04 challenge
q900 outcomeshared c04 challenge

Source ordinal s01 · four score-matched histories at q8 → the same c04 challenge at q900. The crop changes only the display, not the analysis.

03 · all organisms

The q900 outcomes stay widely separated as the present shapes diverge and formation times narrow.

0.378q8 mean separation among q900 outcomes · 95% interval 0.353–0.403
0.088q8 mean separation among the four release shapes · q900-to-q8 ratio 4.3×
9.9q8 mean range of later formation times across the four histories · 4.8 by q32
What changed from q8 to q32 in each of the 39 organisms Each thin line follows one organism across q8, q16, q24, and q32. Thick colored lines are cohort means and vertical whiskers are the stored 95 percent bootstrap intervals. Separation among q900 outcomes remains broad, separation among the release shapes rises, and the range of later formation times narrows. q900 outcome separationmean distance0.140.380.62q8: cohort mean 0.378q16: cohort mean 0.371q24: cohort mean 0.362q32: cohort mean 0.362Release-shape separationmean distance0.040.120.20q8: cohort mean 0.088q16: cohort mean 0.105q24: cohort mean 0.116q32: cohort mean 0.124Range of later formation timespassage range0.0018.0036.00q8: cohort mean 9.897q8q16: cohort mean 7.795q16q24: cohort mean 6.615q24q32: cohort mean 4.795q32

Thin lines are the 39 analyzed organisms, thick lines are cohort means, and whiskers are the stored 95% bootstrap intervals for each checkpoint; because the same cohort appears at every checkpoint, these are not independent age samples.

At q8, mean separation among q900 outcomes was 104.4% of the q32 mean, so the q8 point estimate was slightly higher; 31 of 39 organisms followed that direction. Separation among the four release shapes moved the other way in 39 of 39 organisms, rising from 0.088 at q8 to 0.124 at q32, while the range of later formation times fell from 9.9 to 4.8 passages, with q8 above q32 in 30 organisms and equal in 3. Those organism counts show how the aggregate pattern varied across the cohort; they were calculated descriptively from the stored rows and are not separate hypothesis tests.

04 · what it means

At q8, almost-matched shapes already respond differently to the same later challenges.

This does not mean that a mature or stable body is already present, nor does it make q8 a universal beginning of plasticity. It means that, by the earliest checkpoint measured here, the recent sequence of pulses already changes how the organism responds to a common set of later interventions, even though the four release states remain much closer in visible geometry; that is the concrete sense in which the future is already broad.

What is visible here

At q8, the earlier histories leave larger differences among q900 outcomes than among the release shapes. Through q32, differences among the present shapes increase, while the mean range of later formation times falls from 9.9 to 4.8 passages, so the earlier route is becoming more visible in form at the same time as later timing becomes less variable.

What remains ambiguous

The source organisms and their untouched event times came from the earlier mechanistic series; this study did not use an independent population, and it did not include a spatially disordered control, so this comparison cannot by itself distinguish an effect of organized early structure from generic sensitivity to perturbation.

A later spatial-scale control rearranged the same q8 cells while preserving genotype, channel masses, composition, and the surrounding world. Disorganization delayed visible formation, reduced local action coherence, and broadened distant divergence; early organization therefore appears to narrow and stabilize an already broad range of possible responses, rather than simply producing more divergent outcomes.

Read the spatial-scale control
Sources, statuses, and image hashes
Result status: complete_fixed_age_q8_to_q32_action_world_curve
Plan status: fixed_before_fixed_age_information_histories_or_outcomes
Future-freeze status: frozen_before_release_event_or_causal_future_runs
Cohort: 39 organisms · 16 groups · 156 fixed-age states · 312 score-matched history pairs · 624 release trajectories · 624 event trajectories · 5616 causal futures
Results SHA-256: 99727f878bab51518dddfb618cec0cd98c15bb6fe8b3667f515adb6d933e4817
Analyzed rows SHA-256: fa8d13b36861467f4705f97e25a9eb5409803e430f03693c0315e079c9bd1d93
Plan SHA-256: 272ac4d78a29b5a072035f133b33ace79f51bc7becd4c9eb3d9dfdfddcb5bff3
Future freeze SHA-256: 7574e23ce4094d1b98a7eef049af07282f5fc392aa19672e66f6dacf5caf2db9
Analysis code SHA-256: d62dc7b53df29f168c93f71884ea441452dadebd8ac5c3e3009d8c4b8c30597e
Representative image source: first frozen-cohort record, source ordinal s01; not selected on morphology or outcome.
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