Perturbations & State Changes

This page interprets state changes as changes in regime realization under the DEF kernel.

Perturbations are treated as structural probes: they shift constraint tension, self-reference stability, and phase traversal behavior.

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Perturbations as regime interventions

Common perturbation families include:

• sleep and sleep deprivation,
• sedation and anesthesia,
• psychedelics and dissociatives,
• seizures and pathological hyper-synchrony,
• sensory deprivation or overload,
• lesions or transient inhibition.

DEF does not treat these as “more or less consciousness” along a single axis.
It treats them as changes in:

• admissible composition,
• self-reference boundedness,
• and recoverability.

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DEF phase interpretation of state changes

A compact structural interpretation:

• Entry-dominant regimes
  processing remains local; global stabilization is weak

• Crisis-dominant regimes
  coupling and tension are high; the system is near admissibility boundaries

• Resolution-capable regimes
  the system can re-stabilize after high coupling and maintain coherent access

Many perturbations can be described as shifting:

• which phase the system occupies most often,
• or whether Crisis can successfully resolve.

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Examples of structural profiles (interpretative)

Deep sedation / anesthesia (generic profile)

• reduced ability to sustain cross-kernel binding
• weakened or absent resolution signatures
• local processing may persist while global coherence collapses

Sleep (generic profile)

• altered ordering and reduced access
• regime may preserve internal closure but change what is externally stabilizable

Psychedelic-like perturbation (generic profile)

• increased coupling and diversity of compositions
• elevated tension and reduced constraint tightness
• possible difficulty resolving into stable, reportable configurations

Seizure-like regimes (generic profile)

• extreme coupling with loss of boundedness
• collapse of admissible composition diversity
• high risk of divergence or trivial attractors

These are structural sketches, not clinical statements.

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Perturbation recoverability

A central DEF requirement is recoverability:

• perturbation may push the system into Crisis,
• but Resolution must be achievable without adding new primitives.

Failure modes include:

• prolonged crisis without resolution,
• repeated unstable cycling,
• or divergent escape (loss of finite closure).

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Experimental framing

DEF suggests focusing on questions of the form:

• Which perturbations selectively disrupt cross-kernel binding?
• Which perturbations preserve local processing but abolish resolution?
• Which perturbations increase tension while maintaining closure?
• Which perturbations collapse non-degeneracy (mode dominance)?

This framing encourages profiles that can be tested across paradigms.

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Scope

This page does not provide medical advice.

It provides a structural interpretation of state changes that can guide:

• experiment selection,
• marker interpretation,
• and cross-domain comparisons with Physics & Math (regime windows, invariance breaking).