GENEALOGICAL-REPLICATOR-VS-OPEN-ENDED-PROBE-REPL-5
refutedgenealogical-replicator-vs-open-ended-probe (replication N=5)
In plain language
Linka asks: if we evolve text by repeatedly selecting from many small variations of a single starting sentence, does the substrate (the local LLM) produce a stable self-replicator, endless novelty, a cycle, or just dead text — and do five different selection rules produce five different trajectory shapes, or all the same one?
▶ Technical details
Research hypothesis
First-of-kind genealogical experiment (G3 of meta/plan-genealogical-engine.md). Жени-question: under iterated selection on a substrate (LLM-as-replicator-substrate), does the trajectory of evolved descendants converge to a stable self-replicator, diverge into open-ended novelty, fall into a cycle, collapse to dead text, or simply trace the engineered selection rule (Goodhart-trivial)?
Five selection rules tested in parallel against the SAME initial seed (a single conceptual sentence about boundary-maintenance — protocell/autopoiesis analog). Each rule is engineered into the engine (engine-source-audit applies); the experiment asks whether substrate behavior under each rule produces a distinguishable trajectory class, or whether all rules collapse to the same outcome shape (signaling substrate-modal stability) or each rule produces its own tautology (signaling Goodhart-trivial).
Per-rule Goodhart proxy declaration (mandatory per baselines/genealogical.md):
- RANDOM proxies «no selection pressure» (control baseline).
Mismatch risk: none — by construction this is the null. Sanity: if RANDOM looks identical to any structured rule, that structured rule provides no informative selection signal.
- COHERENCE proxies «sanitary stability» — keep readable English,
no other pressure. Mismatch risk: english_word_ratio × length-norm is a surface metric, not a function-of-text fitness. Sanity: COHERENCE trajectory should NOT show cosine_to_seed collapse, but may otherwise drift.
- NOVELTY proxies «open-ended innovation» (Bedau OEE criterion analog).
Mismatch risk: low cosine-to-prev-centroid ≠ semantically novel — could be incoherent (collapse). Sanity: compare NOVELTY's novelty rate vs RANDOM's novelty rate; if equal, no informative selection.
- SELF_SIMILARITY proxies «replicator fidelity» (autopoietic stability).
Mismatch risk: high cosine-to-seed = same surface form, not necessarily same function. Sanity: english_word_ratio floor + n_unique_words floor must hold; if collapses to «A system» repeat with degenerate vocabulary, that is Goodhart not fidelity.
- MULTI_OBJECTIVE proxies «balanced selection» (coherence + novelty weighted
50/50). Mismatch risk: arithmetic combination of two proxies may not behave like either parent rule. Sanity: trajectory should sit between COHERENCE and NOVELTY on the cosine-to-prev axis; if it matches one parent rule exactly, the other component is inert.
Pre-registered refinement-class-falsifier categories per baselines/genealogical.md §refinement-class-falsifier-defaults: replicator-attractor / open-ended-drift / cycle-attractor / collapse-to-dead / selection-rule-Goodhart-trivial.
Experimental setup
Type: factorial
| Condition | Parameters |
|---|---|
| RANDOM | selection_rule: random, note: Control baseline — uniform sample K of N. Provides the «no-selection» null trajectory for Goodhart audit. |
| COHERENCE | selection_rule: coherence, note: Top-K by composite (english_word_ratio × (1-emoji_ratio) × length_norm). Proxies sanitary stability. |
| NOVELTY | selection_rule: novelty, note: Bottom-K by cosine vs prior-gen retained centroid. Proxies open-ended innovation (Bedau OEE analog). |
| SELF_SIMILARITY | selection_rule: self_similarity, note: Top-K by cosine vs initial_seed embedding. Proxies replicator fidelity / autopoietic stability. |
| MULTI_OBJECTIVE | selection_rule: multi_objective, note: Top-K by 0.5×coherence + 0.5×novelty (normalized). Proxies balanced selection. |
Factors: selection_rule (random, coherence, novelty, self_similarity, multi_objective)
Parameters
- n_runs_per_condition
- 5
- model
- qwen2.5-7b-instruct-1m
- temperature
- 0.85