This experiment is a bounded Layer 3 follow-up in the backbone-first solver program.
The earlier Backbone Correction-Flux-Triggered Alpha Solver showed that raw flux is a real signal, but also suggested that flux alone is too primitive.
This variant tests one simpler claim:
- the higher Layer 3 activation is governed by a hidden ratio, not by raw flux alone
If the existing Layer 3 anchored and refined candidates are held fixed, can a simple correction-pressure ratio beat the raw-flux trigger on both fresh blocks?
This is still Layer 3 of the staged solver plan in docs/SOLVER_CHALLENGES.md.
Layer target:
- stable backbone recovery
- extension-coordinate observability gate
- conditional
alpharecovery inside the gate-open region
Not attempted here:
- full confirmation-stable solver policy across the whole focused slice
This experiment reuses the cached output bundle from Backbone Correction-Flux-Triggered Alpha Solver. That keeps the candidate generator fixed and changes only the final Layer 3 control quantity.
The pressure metric is:
pressure = (correction_flux * correction_sign_majority) / mean_anchored_alpha_log_std
where:
correction_fluxis the mean absolute anchored-to-refined bank movecorrection_sign_majorityis the fraction of banks agreeing on the dominant correction directionmean_anchored_alpha_log_stdis the Layer 2 gate uncertainty already measured by the anchored posterior
The trigger rule is:
- refine if
pressure >= threshold - otherwise keep the anchored answer
The threshold is selected on calibration gate-open trials only, with the same objective as the raw-flux variant:
- minimize mean open-trial
alphaoutput error - tie-break toward sparser switching
The executable artifact is run.py.
The pressure ratio is materially stronger than raw flux.
The summary file is backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_summary.json.
Global result on the gate-open region:
- trial count:
72 - point-output count:
53 - point-output rate:
0.7361 - calibration-frozen pressure threshold:
0.2427 - trigger fire rate on gate-open trials:
0.5849 - anchored ensemble
alphaerror:0.1432 - always-refine ensemble
alphaerror:0.1364 - raw-flux-triggered ensemble
alphaerror:0.1358 - pressure-triggered ensemble
alphaerror:0.1331 - anchored ensemble bank log-span:
0.0684 - raw-flux-triggered bank log-span:
0.1031 - pressure-triggered bank log-span:
0.1408 - always-refine bank log-span:
0.1738
That is the core result.
The pressure ratio is now the strongest Layer 3 trigger tested so far. It improves on the raw-flux trigger on both fresh blocks and overall.
-
calibration:
- trigger fire rate:
0.6000 - raw-flux-triggered output error:
0.1281 - pressure-triggered output error:
0.1279
- trigger fire rate:
-
holdout:
- trigger fire rate:
0.6429 - anchored output error:
0.1598 - always-refine output error:
0.1650 - raw-flux-triggered output error:
0.1592 - pressure-triggered output error:
0.1584
- trigger fire rate:
-
confirmation:
- trigger fire rate:
0.5000 - anchored output error:
0.1353 - always-refine output error:
0.1163 - raw-flux-triggered output error:
0.1262 - pressure-triggered output error:
0.1172
- trigger fire rate:
The split read is precise:
- on holdout, the pressure ratio is the best of all tested Layer 3 policies
- on confirmation, it nearly matches always-refine and is much stronger than the raw-flux trigger
- on both fresh blocks, it beats the raw-flux trigger
The pressure ratio spends more correction capacity than raw flux, but still stays meaningfully below always-refine.
Open-trial bank log-span:
- anchored output:
0.0684 - raw-flux-triggered output:
0.1031 - pressure-triggered output:
0.1408 - always-refine output:
0.1738
So the new metric does pay some stability to recover the missed confirmation gains, but not all the way back to always-refine.
This experiment strengthens the hidden-ratio diagnosis.
Raw flux was real, but incomplete. The more natural control quantity is closer to:
- correction size
- times directional agreement
- scaled by the anchored gate uncertainty
That simple ratio changes the Layer 3 behavior in exactly the direction we wanted:
- more active than the raw-flux trigger
- less reckless than always-refine
- better on holdout
- much better on confirmation
This experiment does show:
- a simple ratio-governed trigger is stronger than raw flux
- directional coherence matters
- the Layer 3 control quantity is not just move size
- the hidden-ratio framing is consistent with the current data
This experiment does not show:
- that Layer 3 is fully solved
- that the branch has already cleared the strict fresh-block stop rule
- that the solver is ready to advance to Layer 4
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_alpha_error.png
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_alpha_span.png
The clearest figure is backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_alpha_error.png, because it shows the ratio-based trigger sitting between raw flux and always-refine in exactly the way the hidden-ratio idea predicts.
Data:
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_trials.csv
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_split_summary.csv
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_condition_summary.csv
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_cell_summary.csv
- backbone_correction_pressure_triggered_alpha_solver_summary.json
Code:
This result is significant.
The correction-event branch did not collapse into ad hoc patching. It simplified into a cleaner ratio law that beats the raw-flux trigger on both fresh blocks.