We were asking
How much can an early, inventory-preserving rearrangement alter the future before it alters the organism-level developmental programme?
Flow Lenia / orientation
Before the Organism — A Causal Atlas
An exact local rearrangement after q8 opened increasingly different microscopic trajectories without broadly moving formation timing or adult phenotype, which remained strongly tied to organism identity.
archiveexploratory causal atlas
This experiment found
The microscopic paths separated strongly, while timing and coarse adult phenotype remained comparatively canalized; robustness here coexists with substantial causal freedom.
That sent us to
Which pre-form measurement predicts whether that freedom will later contract around transition timing?