Attractor Landscapes in Ocular Ecology A SHAI-Based Analysis of Phase Transitions in Macular Degeneration

AbstractAge-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible central visionloss in adults over 60. This paper proposes that AMD is a phase transition within the OcularEcology -- a topological shift from dynamic homeostatic resilience to self-reinforcingpathological stability. The SHAI 6-Agent Architecture governs this ecosystem across sixspecialised monitoring domains. Version 4.1 introduces a mathematically robust reformulationof the peri-critical stability index (Track-2) as a dual construct: Resilience R(t) --fold-consistent early warning signals (autocorrelation and variance inflation) -- andConditional Coupling C(t) -- metabolic-immune coordination beyond shared exogenousdrivers. This dual structure prevents spurious mutual information inflation undercommon-mode dominance, aligns Track-2 with established early-warning signal literature(Scheffer et al., 2009), and preserves the Intervention Probability Window (IPW) frameworkdescribed in v4. The hazard model is updated to include R(t) and C(t) as separatetime-varying covariates. All other sections carry forward from v4 unchanged.