Minimum Installation Condition (MIC)

Canonical definition

The Minimum Installation Condition is the architectural specification of what is required for the M input channel (the Observer) to install a Mimetic signal toward an Object from another Individual's conduct in a given observation cycle. This is M's social special case; general-case Salience, the Observer's reading of the Object field against the Thinker's priors, requires no Model (Chapter 4, Section 4.4.7). MIC consists of two complementary clauses, a gate clause that specifies the necessary and sufficient condition for opening the M-channel for installation, and a magnitude clause that specifies how the Salience weight of the installed signal is set. MIC is valence-signed: installation occurs in the positive-valence and the negative-valence direction alike, and the downstream dynamics differ by sign, positive-valence installation participates in approach-interminability consistent with the Observer's non-termination architecture; negative-valence installation participates in pursuit-termination with retained Salience (socially transmitted aversion) under the Signed Valuation Principle. Gate clause. The sole architectural requirement for opening the M-channel for installation of a Mimetic signal toward an Object from another Individual is perception by the Observer of another Individual exhibiting directional valence toward that Object: positive (approach, pursuit, reaching, acquisition, lingering gaze, positive display directed at the Object, expressed valuation) or negative (avoidance, recoil, withdrawal, contamination-coding, scapegoat-coding, expressed revulsion directed at the Object). Any conduct toward the Object discriminable from indifference carries it, and its sign is the sign of the installed signal. Nothing further is required at the gate. The gate does not require that the Object carry A-functional or I-functional relevance for the observing Individual, that the observing Individual possess prior familiarity with the Object, that the Object be scarce, or that any particular slow-loop state obtain. Another Individual merely co-present with the Object, or oriented toward it by a passing glance or by position with no valence readable in the orientation, does not open the gate: the Salience elevation that Individual-detection produces (the Configural Update-Rate Asymmetry) binds to the perceived Individual as an Object in the field (Individual-as-Object) and directs attention without installing a valuation of anything else. Magnitude clause. The Salience weight applied to the installed signal is conditioned by the Thinker's priors about the Body Manager's current deficit state, its own current deficit state, and the Object field, as delivered read-only to the Observer through the Belief Register per Section 4.4.8, and by the strength of the perceived Individual's directional valence toward the Object. An observation event that carries directional valence therefore opens the gate whatever the slow loop's state, and produces an installed M-signal whose sign is set by what the perceived Individual was doing and whose magnitude is set by the slow loop's current posteriors at the moment of observation and by how strongly the valence was expressed. The same observation produces differently weighted installed signals in different slow-loop states, which is why deficit-primed Individuals exhibit amplified mimetic responsiveness to Models attracted to deficit-repair Objects, and why I-engaged Individuals exhibit amplified mimetic responsiveness to Models attracted to capacity-building Objects.