EXP-COMPETITION-PILOT

INTER-GROUP COMPETITION HYPOTHESIS

L5 = community: interacting organisms, meta-organization. exp-community-merge showed that merging two pre-formed groups AMPLIFIES hierarchy. But that was cooperative contact. Key L5 question: does the MODE of interaction (competition vs cooperation) produce different meta-organizational structures?

PROTOCOL (6 sub-experiments):

• Phase A: Group_1 (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta) — structure-oriented personas, 15 rounds
• Phase B: Group_2 (Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta) — fluidity-oriented personas, 15 rounds
• Phase C-COMPETE: All 8 agents merged, COMPETITION framing (Group_1 instructed to impose structure, Group_2 to dissolve/transform it)
• Phase C-COOPERATE: All 8 agents merged, COOPERATION framing (Both groups instructed to build together, integrate approaches)
• Phase C-ISOLATED-A: Group_1 continues alone 15 more rounds (duration control)
• Phase C-ISOLATED-B: Group_2 continues alone 15 more rounds (duration control)

WHY N=4 per group: N=4 is the stable hierarchy size (exp-pent, scaling data). Two N=4 groups = N=8 total, testing whether meta-organization emerges at community scale.

COMPETITION OPERATIONALIZATION: The 'resource' is the shared text space. Competition = directional pressure. Group_1 agents are told their goal is to bring ORDER and STRUCTURE to the text. Group_2 agents are told their goal is to bring FLUIDITY and TRANSFORMATION. These are genuine competing strategies for shaping the shared resource. Neither is 'correct' — both are creative orientations that can coexist or conflict.

COOPERATION OPERATIONALIZATION: Same groups merged, but ALL agents told to INTEGRATE the best of both approaches. No directional pressure. Both groups contribute toward shared synthesis.

THEORETICAL GROUNDING:

• Szathmary & Maynard Smith (1995): major transitions involve competition being suppressed at lower level to enable cooperation at higher level
• Mathis (2024): composition barrier — competition may be the pressure that drives or blocks composition into higher units
• Maley, Gershenson & Kauffman: cooperation inevitability (rho~0.6) Question: does competition prevent the convergence they predict?

THIS IS EXPLORATION TIER (N=1). Goal: does competition produce different meta-organization than cooperation?