From an emerged world

Does an existing replicator keep getting more complicated once a treatment is switched on, and does it hold at all? Each run starts from the last stored world of a host–parasite control that is at least half replicators, and carries on under its parent's own dynamics, the one priced economy that read keeps rising, a rich economy, or host mode.

Substrate: soup
Status: finished
Epochs per run: 20,000
Runs finished: 216 / 216
Transition rate: no finished run yet

Findings resting on this sweep: Under an energy economy, the dominant replicator copies itself faster published From an emerged start, an energy economy does not keep complexity rising negative

Transition epoch vs treatment

No finished runs yet.

Time to emergence vs treatment

No run has been observed yet.

Distinct lineages vs epoch, per arm of treatment

continuation
0.5×1024×2048×32768
0.5×1024×8192×32768
host

Share of the largest lineage vs epoch, per arm of treatment

continuation
0.5×1024×2048×32768
0.5×1024×8192×32768
host

Compressed length of the dominant tape (bytes) vs epoch, per arm of treatment

continuation
0.5×1024×2048×32768
0.5×1024×8192×32768
host

Instructions in the dominant tape vs epoch, per arm of treatment

continuation
0.5×1024×2048×32768
0.5×1024×8192×32768
host

Compressed length of the largest lineage's tape (bytes) vs epoch, per arm of treatment

continuation
0.5×1024×2048×32768
0.5×1024×8192×32768
host

Instructions in the largest lineage's tape vs epoch, per arm of treatment

continuation
0.5×1024×2048×32768
0.5×1024×8192×32768
host

The pre-registered reading final

Every child of every qualifying parent has finished. Each child is read over its own samples. It held its replicators where the median replicator_share of its last decile is at least 50% and the share never sat below 10% for 3 samples running. It rises where the last-decile median dominant_instruction_count of its self-replicating samples is at least 1.2 × the first decile's, and plateaus within ±10%. It is unmeasured with fewer than 10 such samples in either decile.

Children per treatment, read so far. Steal rate and distinct tapes are last-decile medians over the children, and are descriptive only.

Treatment	Children	Finished	Held	Relapsed	Rises	Plateau	Mixed	Unmeasured	steal_rate	distinct_tapes
continuation	54	54	52	2	3	20	31	0	—	5980
economy 2048	54	54	40	14	7	11	36	0	0.00345	8720
economy 8192	54	54	46	8	13	11	29	1	0.019	8940
host mode	54	54	54	0	2	17	35	0	—	4690

Hypotheses

H-economy, economy 2048 against the continuation: not read: relapses more than the continuation

54 pairs measured on both sides: 7 favour the treatment, 3 the continuation, 44 tie; one-sided sign test p = 0.172. Its children relapse more often than the continuation's, so the test (not shown) is printed but not read as H-economy.

Per-parent agreement

Parent	Favour the treatment	Favour the continuation	Tie
run 944	0	1	2
run 950	0	1	2
run 967	0	0	3
run 991	0	0	3
run 1007	0	0	3
run 1029	2	0	1
run 1087	0	0	3
run 1089	3	0	0
run 1103	2	0	1
run 2568	0	0	3
run 2577	0	0	3
run 2590	0	0	3
run 2654	0	0	3
run 2676	0	0	3
run 2700	0	0	3
run 2771	0	0	3
run 2802	0	1	2
run 2862	0	0	3

H-economy, economy 8192 against the continuation: not read: relapses more than the continuation

53 pairs measured on both sides: 12 favour the treatment, 1 the continuation, 40 tie; one-sided sign test p = 0.00171. Its children relapse more often than the continuation's, so the test (held) is printed but not read as H-economy. Carried by parents run 1029 and run 1103: without their pairs the test falls to p ≥ 0.05.

Per-parent agreement

Parent	Favour the treatment	Favour the continuation	Tie	Not both measured
run 944	1	0	1	1
run 950	2	1	0	0
run 967	1	0	2	0
run 991	0	0	3	0
run 1007	0	0	3	0
run 1029	3	0	0	0
run 1087	0	0	3	0
run 1089	0	0	3	0
run 1103	3	0	0	0
run 2568	0	0	3	0
run 2577	0	0	3	0
run 2590	0	0	3	0
run 2654	0	0	3	0
run 2676	0	0	3	0
run 2700	0	0	3	0
run 2771	0	0	3	0
run 2802	2	0	1	0
run 2862	0	0	3	0

H-host, host mode against the continuation: refuted

54 pairs measured on both sides: 1 favour the treatment, 2 the continuation, 51 tie; one-sided sign test p = 0.875.

Per-parent agreement

Parent	Favour the treatment	Favour the continuation	Tie
run 944	0	1	2
run 950	0	1	2
run 967	0	0	3
run 991	0	0	3
run 1007	0	0	3
run 1029	0	0	3
run 1087	0	0	3
run 1089	0	0	3
run 1103	0	0	3
run 2568	0	0	3
run 2577	0	0	3
run 2590	0	0	3
run 2654	0	0	3
run 2676	0	0	3
run 2700	0	0	3
run 2771	0	0	3
run 2802	1	0	2
run 2862	0	0	3

H-persistence, the continuation children hold: refuted
H-persistence refuted: 2 of 54 continuation children relapsed. They were watched over colony ages 600–38,320.
- run 3171 (parent run 1087, seed 1003) relapsed at epoch 21,520, colony age 13,350
- run 3601 (parent run 2654, seed 1001) relapsed on its last decile alone

Median replicator share per 1000 epochs past the parent, per treatment

continuation
economy 2048
economy 8192
host mode

A held-out confirmatory reading, pre-registered 2026-09-25 final

Its rules were written after the reading above and an exploratory look at the same children, so they are read only on the children of parents from sweep 9's extension (seeds above 90) none of whose children had been seen. Past a settling window of 1,000 epochs, a child relapsed where its share sat below 10% for 3 samples running; it is extinct where its last-decile median share is below 10%. H3-latency pairs the economy child against the continuation child on the ratio of their last-decile to first-decile median copy_latency, a lower ratio favouring its side; H4-survivors reads the original complexity rule on pairs whose two children both survived. Host mode is not re-tested.

Held-out children per treatment, read so far.

Treatment	Children	Finished	Settled relapses	Latency measured	Survivors
continuation	24	24	0	24	24
economy 2048	24	24	3	24	21
economy 8192	24	24	5	24	19
host mode	24	24	0	24	24

Hypotheses

H3-latency, economy 2048 against the continuation: shown
24 pairs measured on both sides: 20 favour the treatment, 4 the continuation, 0 tie; one-sided sign test p = 0.000772.
H4-survivors, economy 2048 against the continuation: refuted
21 pairs measured on both sides: 0 favour the treatment, 1 the continuation, 20 tie; one-sided sign test p = 1.
H3-latency, economy 8192 against the continuation: shown
24 pairs measured on both sides: 21 favour the treatment, 3 the continuation, 0 tie; one-sided sign test p = 0.000139.
H4-survivors, economy 8192 against the continuation: not shown
19 pairs measured on both sides: 1 favour the treatment, 0 the continuation, 18 tie; one-sided sign test p = 0.5.

Runs

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Seed	Treatment	Status	Priority	Epochs done	Transition epoch	Census
1003	0.5×1024×8192×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	49 census only	Run
1001	host	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1002	host	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1003	host	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1001	continuation	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1002	continuation	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1003	continuation	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1001	0.5×1024×2048×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	46 census only	Run
1002	0.5×1024×2048×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	43 census only	Run
1003	0.5×1024×2048×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	22 census only	Run
1001	0.5×1024×8192×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	119 census only	Run
1002	0.5×1024×8192×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	145 census only	Run
1003	0.5×1024×8192×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	53 census only	Run
1001	host	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1002	host	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1003	host	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1001	continuation	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	63 census only	Run
1002	continuation	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	53 census only	Run
1003	continuation	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	—	Run
1001	0.5×1024×2048×32768	finished	50	40,000	— confirmed	34 census only	Run