# SocietyLab Life Layer

An observational layer for SocietyLab v1.4.

This branch does not try to prove the main causal claim of v1.4.
Instead, it asks a quieter question:

> If the same social history is given places, gestures, sensory traces, and shadows of time, what becomes readable?

The base SocietyLab v1.4 model works through memory, trust, support, projects, death, and birth.
The life layer does not replace that model. It sits on top of it and adds a way to read the same run as lived social history.

## What This Adds

The life layer adds observations such as:

- weather
- tea houses, wells, gates, paths
- traces of objects
- scent and touch
- people appearing in the same place
- brief conversation shadows
- familiarity shadows
- memory shadows
- time shadows

These are not meant to be strong social variables.
They are coordinates for reading.

## What It Does Not Do

In its observation-only form, the life layer does not change:

- population
- food
- birth
- death
- trust
- support
- project success or failure
- memory propagation in the base model

The base simulation remains unchanged.  
Only the observation log becomes richer.

## Why This Exists

The v1.4 model can produce histories that look socially meaningful, but the base logs are abstract:

```text
memory_shared
proposal_supported
project_failure
death
birth
network_split
```

The life layer gives those histories places and traces:

```text
tea_house
well
gate
path
same_place_nearby
conversation_shadow
memory_shadow
time_shadow
```

This does not mean the village literally had a dramatic tea house culture.
It means that the same underlying social history can be read through a human-scale layer of place and time.

## Relationship to SocietyLab v1.4

SocietyLab v1.4 asks:

> Can interpretation reach history?

The life layer asks:

> Once a history exists, how can we read it without over-explaining it?

These are related, but separate.

The v1.4 causal claim belongs to the main repository.
The life layer belongs here as an observational and interpretive branch.

## Important Caution

This project is easy to overread.

`same_place_nearby` does not mean friendship.  
`conversation_shadow` does not mean a real conversation changed trust.  
`memory_shadow` does not prove that a person remembered someone emotionally.

These are thin observational labels.
They should be read carefully and literally.

## Current Status

The observation-only life layer has been checked against the v1.4 base model.
Across tested seeds, the base simulation remains unchanged while the life observations become richer.

A later experimental branch explores whether rare `memory_shadow` events can create a tiny trust nudge.
That branch is not the main observation layer. It should be treated as a controlled intervention experiment.

## Suggested Reading

Start with two contrasting seeds:

- `seed1003`: a quiet, aging village
- `seed1061`: a denser village with many crossings of place and time

Together they show what the life layer is for:
not making the society more dramatic, but making its traces easier to read.

## One-Sentence Summary

SocietyLab Life Layer adds places, gestures, and time shadows to an existing social simulation so that the same history can be read as lived experience.
```