Author: Florian Morin
Year: 2026
Type: Research note
Version: v2.0
Canonical URL: https://florianmorin.com/papers/affective-collapse-under-causal-closure.html
Mirror versions:
Figshare DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.31385281
Zenodo DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18537408
v2.0 (2026) – Updated canonical page reference and identifier structure. No changes to scientific content.
v1.0 (2026) – Initial release.
This paper functions as the general conclusion of the Ease corpus. It consolidates the central claim, introduces Z (cumulative causal consolidation) as the main access constraint, formalizes capture and suspension at entry, and provides the canonical falsification boundary and prediction index (A1-D1, F1-F5).
A substantial subset of children appear to live with a mild, background positive affect, not as a discrete event but as a permissive default regime of experience. With maturation, access to this regime often becomes rare. Standard explanations invoke stress, responsibility, or hedonic adaptation, but they do not specify a mechanism. This note proposes a single control-level variable, Z, cumulative causal consolidation, that progressively increases anticipatory closure. High positive affect is not extinguished with maturity but gated by structural over-closure.
Maturity does not reduce joy, it makes experience self-explanatory too early for it to reorganize into an event. The primary loss is structural openness at entry, not hedonic capacity.
Morin, F. (2026). Affective Collapse Under Causal Closure: Why Childhood Joy Becomes Inaccessible. Research note. Canonical page: https://florianmorin.com/papers/affective-collapse-under-causal-closure.html.
@article{morin2026affectivecollapse,
title = {Affective Collapse Under Causal Closure: Why Childhood Joy Becomes Inaccessible},
author = {Morin, Florian},
year = {2026},
url = {https://florianmorin.com/papers/affective-collapse-under-causal-closure.html}
}