society: the dynamic Lamarckian society — the vertical claim (E11 / C3)

The culmination. A finite population of agents (genotypes, L loci) evolves
on a rugged NK landscape that IS reality (knowledge/dynamic_society.py),
composing the four operators the whole study built toward: grounding,
directed recombination (sex), quality-diversity selection, and mutation.
Grounding is made load-bearing via the consensus-conformity (self-
consumption) mechanism (GG decision): selection acts on
g*true_fitness + (1-g)*conformity, where conformity = agreement with the
population's own consensus, so at g=0 the society optimises fitting-the-
crowd rather than reality.

4-arm ablation (12 reps), each breaking distinctly, only the full society
climbing (global_opt ~ 0.79):
- full         0.78  climbs to the optimum, diversity maintained longest
- no_sex       0.77  can't recombine to escape local optima
- no_diversity 0.74  greedy: collapses diversity fastest, worse local optimum
- no_grounding 0.48  self-consumption collapse to an unfit consensus
                     (trains on the crowd -> confident-but-wrong mean;
                      conformity-true gap ~ 0.5)

This integrates E1-E6 + the learning kernel + E7-E10 into one system and
shows the Lamarckian society needs ALL of grounding + directed sex +
diversity: on a rugged landscape you need diversity to explore basins, sex
to recombine them, and grounding to select on reality -- remove any one and
you fail differently. Closes the C3 vertical claim analytically; the LLM
rung remains the eventual empirical instantiation.

New: knowledge/dynamic_society.py, configs/layer1/E11.yaml, figures/
plot_E11.py, README, tests/test_dynamic_society.py (+5). kind:
dynamic_society dispatch; make layer1 wired. 122 tests green.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

CLAUDE.md

@@ -84,6 +84,8 @@ E4's whole purpose is to isolate the effect of teacher **decorrelation ρ**, so
 
 **Finding (2026-07-05, E9/E10 — the sexual-transmission model made rigorous: when sex helps, and directed sex).** Deepening the sexual metaphor (GG excited; wanted it robust before the full society). Added a **Kauffman NK landscape** (`genotype.nk_fitness`, tunable ruggedness `K`), finite **crossover** (`genotype.crossover`, n-parent, per-gap recombination rate), and **hill-climb** (parents = local optima = "trained models"). **E9 (`kind: recomb_landscape`) — landscape robustness / "why sex?":** E8's dramatic transgression used an *additive* landscape; on rugged (epistatic) landscapes, blindly recombining local optima causes **outbreeding depression** — mean offspring fall *below* the parents, worse with ruggedness AND recombination rate (`K=8`, free recomb: ≈ −0.23), and the **optimal recombination rate shrinks as ruggedness grows**. Design rule: *merge freely when skills are complementary/additive; sparingly + with selection when entangled.* **E10 (`kind: directed_sex`) — directed sex beats biological sex (the AI superpower):** biology is stuck with 2 random-mating parents and no offspring preview; an AI can **choose complementary mates + evaluate many recombinant offspring + keep the fittest + use unbounded parents** (iterated recombine-then-select). Result: random ("biological") sex craters with ruggedness (0.66→0.51), while **directed sex tracks/exceeds the best parent at every ruggedness** — converting the outbreeding-depression catastrophe into a win. This is the practical, distinctly-AI payoff and has no biological analog. `configs/layer1/{E9,E10}.yaml`, `plot_{E9,E10}.py`, READMEs, +5 tests (117 green). Complete sexual-transmission picture: **dramatic super-parent offspring when skills are complementary (E8); outbreeding-depression risk when entangled (E9); directed sex resolves the risk (E10).**
 
+**Finding (2026-07-05, E11 — the dynamic Lamarckian society: the vertical claim / C3, realized).** The culmination: a finite population of `N` agents (genotypes, `L` loci) evolves on a rugged NK landscape that *is* reality (`knowledge/dynamic_society.py`), composing the four operators the whole study built toward — grounding, directed recombination (sex), quality-diversity selection, mutation. Grounding is made load-bearing via the **consensus-conformity (self-consumption)** mechanism (GG decision): selection acts on `g·true_fitness + (1−g)·conformity` (conformity = agreement with the population's own consensus), so `g=0` optimises fitting-the-crowd rather than reality. **4-arm ablation (12 reps), each breaking distinctly, only the full society climbing (global_opt≈0.79):** `full` 0.78 (climbs to the optimum, diversity maintained longest) · `no_sex` 0.77 (can't recombine to escape local optima) · `no_diversity`/greedy 0.74 (collapses diversity fastest, stuck at a worse local optimum) · **`no_grounding` 0.48 (self-consumption collapse to an unfit consensus** — trains on the crowd, regresses to a confident-but-wrong mean; conformity−true gap ≈0.5). This integrates E1–E6 + the kernel + E7–E10 into one system and shows the society needs **all** of grounding + directed sex + diversity: on a rugged landscape you need diversity to explore basins, sex to recombine them, grounding to select on reality — remove any and you fail differently. `configs/layer1/E11.yaml`, `plot_E11.py`, README, +5 tests (122 green). **This closes the C3 vertical claim analytically** (the LLM rung remains the eventual empirical instantiation).
+
 ## Build order (blueprint §7) — respect the gate
 
 1. Scaffold: repo layout (§5), container, pytest skeleton, config system, seeding utils. `make test` green.