Observer

Canonical definition

The reader-facing name for Mimetic Desire (M) used in the Minimal Architecture Specification and throughout the treatise where the architectural role of the component (continuous conditional Object-field Salience assessment, conditional on cached Thinker-supplied priors (these priors are maintained by the Thinker and reach the Observer by the Thinker's top-down projection, not read from the Decision Hub), with a distinctive social-observation input stream) is under discussion rather than the Axiom-1 source-taxonomy role. The Observer is not a distinct component from M; it is the same Disaggregation Primitive specified under its reading-surface function rather than under its source-taxonomy label. It is introduced in Chapter 4 Section 4.4 in the course of specifying the minimal architecture, and is used in preference to "Mimetic Desire" wherever the architectural function (continuous watching of the perceived Object field, salience-flag production, conditional dependence on cached Thinker priors, absence of stored priors, absence of termination condition) is the point being made. Use "Mimetic Desire" or "M" where the Axiom-1 taxonomic role is the point being made, and "Observer" where the architectural function is the point. The two labels denote the same component. The "passive" register of the English word "Observer" is deliberate and should be preserved: it helps the reader register that M operates without conscious deliberation on its own part, producing Salience signals that enter the Decision Hub without M itself choosing to act. The Observer's baseline function is the reading of the surrounding field and the attachment of signed Salience to the Objects in it, a function that operates whether or not other agents are present; the Model case, in which the Observer reads the valuations of other agents, is the special case of this function on which the framework's failure modes depend, not the definition of the channel. The salience-emission drive (Salience-Emission Asymmetry) is the redeployment of this channel: the Individual's own executed action re-enters as reception through observed responses to it (social reafference). Emission is not new machinery; it is this stream closed through the social world.