HOMEOSTASIS HYPOTHESIS (L4 — organism-level self-maintenance)
L3 experiments show stable hierarchy in N=5 groups (TR_range ~0.5, exp-pent). exp-persona-swap (L2) showed position > persona for individual role assignment. exp-self-repair (L4) showed seamless hierarchy recovery after keystone removal.
KEY QUESTION: if we SWAP agent personas mid-conversation while preserving shared memory, does the organizational pattern (hierarchy structure, role distribution) resist the perturbation?
If the group is an "organism" (L4 homeostasis), organizational patterns should be encoded in shared memory and resist persona changes — the hierarchy pattern should partially persist despite agents receiving new cognitive instructions.
If the group is merely "tissue" (L3), hierarchy follows persona instructions directly — swapping personas should immediately reorganize hierarchy to match new persona assignments.
This extends the self-repair finding: self-repair = recovery after LOSS; homeostasis = resistance to CHANGE. Both are organism-level phenomena.
PROTOCOL:
- Phase 1: N=5 agents interact for 20 rounds (establish hierarchy + roles)
- Perturbation: rotate all personas by 2 positions (A gets C's persona, etc.)
- Phase 2: N=5 agents continue for 20 more rounds with swapped personas
- Control: no perturbation (natural drift baseline)
COMPARISON:
- PERTURBED vs CONTROL: does TR_range drop after perturbation?
- Post-swap role persistence: does agent with highest pre-swap TR maintain high TR despite receiving a different persona?
- If pre-swap hierarchy correlates with post-swap hierarchy (r > 0.5) → homeostasis signal. If r ≈ 0 → no homeostasis.
EXPLORATION TIER (N=1 per condition). Goal: does the phenomenon exist?