Experiments

Cross-Substrate Summary

Cross-Substrate Summary

The Substrate Ladder: mean robustness across V11-V16 — The Substrate Ladder. Mean robustness (Φ_stress / Φ_base) across substrate versions V11.0–V16. Stars mark conditions where robustness exceeded 1.0. More mechanisms ≠ better results: V15 (memory + movement) outperforms V16 (+ plasticity). V16 is the lowest — Hebbian plasticity adds noise faster than selection can filter it.

Version	Mean Robustness	Max Robustness	> 1.0 Cycles	Verdict
V13 (content coupling)	0.923	1.052	3/90	Foundation substrate
V14 (+ chemotaxis)	~0.91	~0.95	~1/90	Motion evolves
V15 (+ memory)	0.907	1.070	3/90	Best dynamics
V16 (+ plasticity)	0.892	0.974	0/90	Negative
V17 (+ signaling)	0.892	1.125	1/90	Suppressed
V18 (boundary)	0.969	1.651	~10/90	Best robustness