Emergent Metastable Record-Support Domains in Overlap Networks

This paper develops a mesoscopic theory of emergent metastable record-support domains on networks of overlapping finite subsystems. The original formulation compressed perturbative stability, correlation strength, record persistence, observer function, and classical spacetime into one scalar coherence variable. Stress testing showed that these roles must be separated, while preserving a narrower emergence result. The revised framework distinguishes fragile and distributed support modes, finite renewal resources, physical record integrity, explicit content and epoch labels, and separate mechanisms for activation, latching, consensus, invalidation, and revision. Local exchange, resource, threshold, and latch dynamics generate connected support domains, collapse-corridor-rescue regimes, hysteretic branches, and revisable distributed records that are not imposed as primitive node labels and that change under matched ablations. Version 3.2 adds a driven turnover audit. A record-support domain preserved late occupancy of 0.6797 and fidelity of 0.9854 after every original record instance had disappeared and approximately 22.7 record generations had passed. Random-provenance and coherent false-renewal controls show the boundary: high support and internal agreement can preserve a stable but wrong identity. Domain persistence is therefore process-level continuity under a declared provenance rule, not material-token immortality and not semantic truth. Overlap remains double-edged. It can pool weak evidence, improve local reliability, and support revision, but it can also double-count redundant support, preserve obsolete copies, sustain incompatible local domains, or stabilize common-mode errors. The framework establishes model-level emergence of collective metastable record-support domains. It does not derive observerhood, a universal preferred basis, classical spacetime, or gravity. A published downstream companion reconstructs Jacobson’s equilibrium equation of state in a finite regulator using additional horizon, tensor, conservation, and provenance assumptions.