Weave Manifest: The Perceptual Half-Life

Date: 2026-04-25 Thread: st-dependency-spiral (B) + st-great-divergence (A) Seed: #106, The Perceptual Half-Life ★ 28 Controversy: The Dependency Spiral (#27) — seventh mechanism

Vision

When neural interface firmware prioritizes cognitive output over sensory fidelity, the world itself becomes a subscription — not access to reality, but the experience of reality. Resolution sickness makes the Dependency Spiral’s most insidious contribution: it operates on the dimension the other six mechanisms leave untouched — raw sensory experience. The poorest people in the Sprawl see the richest colors.

Entity List

Enriched (18)

Slug	Type	Key Addition
dr-aris-kwan	character	Fifth lock: resolution sickness. “What kind of white?” diagnostic.
dr-selin-ayari	character	Perceptual Half-Life research. 4.2/2.8-year calculations. Fifth Dream Deficit loss.
davi-okonkwo	character	22% experiential resolution. Garden hallucination as perceptual breakthrough. “Colors have names again.”
tomiko-vasquez-debtor	character	Cannot taste son’s cooking. Memory replacing experience.
old-jin-the-lamplighter	character	14 ozone signatures. “A healthy eye wanders. An augmented eye arrives.”
orin-slade	character	Concert audience essay. “The sunset is elsewhere.” Resolution war letter.
fen-morrow	character	”Better than real.” Baseline perception as rare commodity.
patience-cross	character	Broth as perceptual diagnostic. Corporate visitors crying over noodles.
lyra-voss	character	”The flat” — synesthetic resolution sickness diagnostic. APR as resolution evidence.
the-dependency-spiral	system	Seventh mechanism: perceptual maintenance. Bandwidth allocation. Fidelity Suite. World as subscription.
the-dumb-supper	culture	Sixth dimension: calibration meal. Silence as perceptual rehabilitation.
dr-felix-strand	character	Three-week perceptual window during degradation. “I would trade everything about thinking for seeing.”
helix-biotech	corporation	Resolution sickness identified 2176, monetized 2183. Fidelity Suite.
naia-okafor	character	Mystery Clubs as perceptual therapy. 89% unprompted sensory observations. “The wanting died because the noticing died first.”
chrome-augmentation	technology	Bandwidth trade-off. Section 47.3. Every rung trades experience for capability.
consciousness-licensing	system	Class gradient: Executive 100%, Professional 60-70%, Basic 30-40%, Dregs 100%. Zhou’s note.
the-insomnia-wards	location	Sensation-seeking intake. Cotton therapy. Perfumer inconsistency as treatment.
the-dream-deficit	concept	Seventh finding: Dream Deficit and resolution sickness as same condition in two registers.

New (0)

No new entities — all roles filled by existing cast.

Key Connections

• Kwan → Ayari: Fifth lock diagnostic maps to fifth Dream Deficit loss — clinical and research perspectives on the same condition
• Jin → Naia: Unaugmented baseline (99.2% uptime through full-resolution hearing) vs Executive-tier (89% restored observations during Club suppression) — both prove the loss
• Tomiko → Patience Cross: Cannot taste Cross’s broth at bandwidth-restricted Basic; Cross’s regulars experience it at full resolution — same food, different mouths
• Strand → Davi: Strand’s three-week window (perception increases as cognition falls) mirrors Davi’s garden hallucination (Lucidity Crisis as perceptual self-repair)
• Fen Morrow → Lyra Voss: Both produce art the augmented cannot fully perceive — Fen through dream resolution, Lyra through synesthetic data the Tribunal flags as anomalous

Open Threads

• Helix’s internal timeline: 2176 identification to 2183 monetization — what happened in those 7 years?
• Zhou’s “Phase 3” — who would have been responsible? Is Zhou herself aware?
• The Fidelity Suite’s interaction with the Time Ratchet — is perceptual maintenance financed through cognitive debt?
• Strand at the Insomnia Ward — if he gets in, does the environment recreate his 55% window?
• Nexus’s response to the class gradient data — would they classify, suppress, or monetize?

Session Metrics

• Thread integrated: st-dependency-spiral — Deep → Deep (seventh mechanism added)
• Entities enriched: 18
• Entities created: 0
• Thread expression score: ~76/30 existing entities now express the Dependency Spiral
• Controversy depth: The Dependency Spiral — Deep → Deep (seven mechanisms now documented)