Liminal States and Observer Architecture: An Informational Framework for Perception, Binding, and Emergence

This paper proposes Observer Architecture — Liminal (OA-L), a cognitive architecture characterised by delayed categorical closure, dual-channel informational access, and a cost/capability profile grounded in Signal Detection Theory. OA-L is situated within a relational state-space framework (Universe π) in which liminal states are treated as structurally real rather than defective. Binding between entities is modelled as a dynamic network. Ghost bindings — persistent connections to absent nodes — are proposed as a formally tractable mechanism for grief, trauma, and post-loss instability. The paper engages with predictive processing, intolerance of uncertainty, network psychopathology, attachment theory, and dual-process theory, and offers seven candidate hypotheses with proposed study designs and explicit failure conditions. No original data are reported. Speculative cross-domain extensions are included as appendices.