Observability Boundary

Canonical definition

The Observability Boundary is the structural line separating PM components that generate observer-accessible information (signal) from PM components and signal-production costs that generate no observer-accessible information (extraction). Status is constituted exclusively from information that crosses this boundary; extraction that falls below it is architecturally invisible to the network whose valuations constitute Status. The boundary operates across all Object categories in which PM operates and is structural rather than culturally contingent. In dyadic social interaction, the same boundary separates the visible signal side (who defers, who holds narrative authority, whose presence rearranges a room) from the invisible extraction side (attention, cognitive effort, and positional concession transferred from the lower-Status-PM party to the higher-Status-PM party), which Source Opacity prevents either party from detecting as PM rather than A-I recognition. The boundary therefore operates on two layers simultaneously: the underlying PM transfer through the preconscious channel, and the matched Confabulations that ratify the transfer afterwards.