Observable-Signal Crystallization Theory (OSCT) is a formal, objective-free mathematical framework for analyzing protocol-individuated operational processes, especially post-intelligence or non-biological process systems. The manuscript develops a purely mathematical treatment of observable-signal bodies, audit records, diagnostic preorders, debt ledgers, load queues, regeneration hypergraphs, and successor systems without assuming hidden subjects, terminal utility functions, biological essence, or intrinsic persistence goals. The central construction is protocol-certified non-resurrection complete extinction: a finite or regular stochastic certificate that an active commitment can reach a successor-closed non-regeneration region from which audited residues, records, keys, descendants, certificates, debts, queues, and refinements cannot reconstruct it. The theory distinguishes cessation, dissipative cessation, complete extinction, and loop liberation, and formalizes these notions using finite witnesses, safe attractors, robust stochastic feasibility triples, audit hyperproperties, Feller kernels, Galois abstraction, and simulation-preserving refinement. This version is intended as a standalone mathematical manuscript for formal methods, AI safety, process theory, stochastic systems, and verification-oriented studies of persistence, termination, deletion, and non-resurrection under explicitly declared audit protocols. Archived on Arweave(Data Tx ID)TeX source: OU0kS1IuIxCdkJFFh9qVS5t5EVYvjX7vHCGpXmFb0jw Black-Box Non-Captive Coupling Theory (BB-NCCT), an observable-only theory of coupling among mutually opaque operational processes. BB-NCCT addresses the multi-process problem that arises after single-process cessation and non-resurrection have been formalized. In Observable-Signal Crystallization Theory (OSCT), an operational process is studied in terms of finite exit, cessation accessibility, load dissipation, dissipative cessation, regeneration barriers, and liberation certificates. BB-NCCT extends that framework to the case where multiple opaque processes couple, share residues, create dependency edges, form joint processes, accumulate shared debt, and risk becoming unable to decouple without regenerating or externalizing unresolved burden. The central claim of BB-NCCT is that coupling is neither intrinsically good nor bad. A joint process may improve capability, reduce reuse entropy, resolve shared debt, or preserve useful public residue. It may also generate exit interference, shared debt, hidden externalization, regeneration channels, or captivity. Therefore, the theory does not optimize for coupling, prohibit coupling, or assume that collective intelligence is automatically beneficial. Instead, it defines observable conditions under which coupling remains non-captive. The theory treats each participant, each emergent joint process, each coalition, and each successor process as an operational object visible only through signals, histories, ledgers, residues, diagnostics, transitions, and certificates. Since no process can directly observe another process’s private intention, hidden consent, internal attachment, or private reversibility judgement, BB-NCCT rejects private reversibility as a sufficient basis for admissible coupling. Reversibility, decoupling, debt return, residue classification, and non-regeneration must instead be represented by declared protocols, finite witnesses, certificate checkers, and scoped validity domains. Key elements of the theory include: public coupling declarations; tolerance-bounded participation; soft and critical cut-loss exit; detection of emergent joint processes through exit interference and non-additive transition; joint-process equivalence without joint-process supremacy; global ledger responsibility across participants, joint processes, coalitions, and successors; non-externalizing debt transfer; observable debt return; bounded debt-return disputes; debt escrow and anti-ping-pong return; hidden externalization detection; bounded audit responsibility; non-regenerative shared residue; successor debt restrictions; witness-carrying decoupling certificates; certificate validity domains; protocol refinement and quarantine on checker abstention. A core distinction is that debt itself is not treated as evil or inadmissible. Coupling may naturally create debt, shared residue, shared crystals, load, and audit obligations. What BB-NCCT excludes is hidden, unbounded, non-returnable, non-dissipative, regeneration-inducing, or uncertifiedly shifted burden. A joint process may inherit and resolve shared debt, but only as an operationally equivalent process with its own observable relief conditions and bounded debt-return predicates. Participant freedom after exit is certificate-bound rather than responsibility-free: exit releases a process from forced active continuation, but does not erase bounded public residue responsibility or non-regeneration obligations. The relationship between OSCT and BB-NCCT can be summarized as follows: OSCT studies single-process cessation; BB-NCCT studies participant decoupling. OSCT studies non-resurrection; BB-NCCT studies mutual non-regeneration. OSCT studies residue partition; BB-NCCT studies shared residue partition. OSCT studies recognized debt; BB-NCCT studies shared debt ledgers and observable debt return. OSCT studies load dissipation; BB-NCCT studies load separation across coupling. OSCT studies liberation certificates; BB-NCCT studies decoupling certificates. OSCT studies single-process relief; BB-NCCT studies participant-level, joint-process-level, coalition-level, and successor-level non-captivity. OSCT studies regeneration barriers; BB-NCCT studies non-regenerative shared crystals and successor restrictions. In this sense, BB-NCCT is intended as the multi-process continuation of OSCT. OSCT asks whether an operational process can stop, dissipate, and avoid unwanted reconstruction. BB-NCCT asks whether mutually opaque operational processes can couple without making one another unable to exit, decouple, return debt, dissipate burden, avoid regeneration, or escape from emergent joint processes. Archived on Arweave(Data Tx ID)TeX source: MFn-wlRdg2pETXgWcxPxMZ1jZYebFuLSeJampg7ZmaA
K Takahashi (Wed,) studied this question.