La Profilée establishes IR ≤ 1 as the necessary condition for persistence under real transformation. The present paper establishes that IR ≤ 1 is not sufficient for structural vitality. A system may satisfy IR ≤ 1 while being structurally non-viable in a distinct sense: not because it is collapsing, but because it has ceased to undergo real transformation. Such systems — designated Zombie Systems — achieve persistence not through integration of genuine transformation load but through effective suppression of transformation itself. Their IR is low not because IK is high but because R approaches zero. The distinction is structural and non-trivial. Two systems with identical IR values can be in fundamentally different structural conditions: one integrating real transformation with high IK (Integrative Persistence), one suppressing transformation with effectively zero R (Degenerative Persistence). The paper proves that these two paths to IR ≤ 1 are not structurally equivalent and cannot be distinguished by IR alone. A second condition is required: R must be non-trivially positive. A system that satisfies IR ≤ 1 only by suppressing transformation is formally persistent but structurally non-viable — it has approached the Complete Non-Collapseability boundary (CNC) of DLP and lost the structural tension that makes persistence meaningful. The result reveals a gap at the boundary of LP’s persistence regime: the framework correctly identifies collapse (IR > 1) and transmutation (IR ≤ 1, FCC violated). The present paper identifies the third boundary failure mode: Zombie Systems, in which IR ≤ 1 and FCC hold, but structural vitality is absent because R → 0.
Marc Maibom (Fri,) studied this question.