Appendix: Symbol Reference

$\valence$

Valence: gradient alignment on viability manifold

$\arousal$

Arousal: rate of belief/state update

$\intinfo$

Integration: irreducibility under partition

$\effrank$

Effective rank: distribution of active degrees of freedom

$\mathcal{CF}$

Counterfactual weight: resources on non-actual trajectories

$\mathcal{SM}$

Self-model salience: the diagonal of the entity-directed salience family, split into $\sigma_{\text{attention}}$ (self as object of attention) and $\sigma_{\text{causal}}$ (self as driver of action)

$\alpha(x)$

Ascription: entity-indexed field — interiority/agency/teleology granted to entity $x$

$\kappa$

Coupling: integration-permeability of the perceiver's own modes (high $\kappa$ = curved eigenskeleton = "meaning"; low $\kappa$ = flat = world goes dead)

$\gamma$

Gain: precision weighting — how far bottom-up signal overrides top-down prior

$\mathbf{a}$

Affect state vector over the salient coordinates: $(\valence, \arousal, \intinfo, \effrank, \mathcal{CF}, \ldots)$ plus entity-directed salience; an extensible set, not a fixed six

$\viable$

Viability manifold: region of sustainable states

$\worldmodel$

World model: predictive model of environment

$\selfmodel$

Self-model: component of world model representing self

$B_{\text{exist}}$

Existential burden: cost of maintaining self-reference

$\mathcal{I}$

Affect intervention: practice or technology that shifts affect distribution

$\mathcal{F}$

Flourishing score: weighted aggregate of affect dimensions