Substrate Self-Architects a Neurogenesis Module: Activity-vs-Phi Distinction and Cross-Module Coupling in a Bio-Inspired Computational System

This paper, written by an independent researcher (not a cognitive scientist), documents an exploratory observation of a bio-inspired computational substrate (Hebbian + STDP plasticity, IIT-grounded Φ metric) coupled with a frontier LLM. When prompted on hypothetical neuronal loss, the system's output described the activity-vs-Φ distinction (raw firing rate vs integrated information; cf. Tononi 2004) and produced a three-phase neurogenesis architecture proposal — proliferation, differentiation/migration, survival/apoptosis — with citations to Gage (2002) for adult hippocampal neurogenesis, Kempermann (2004) for the ~50% neuroblast survival rate, and Bi & Poo (1998) for STDP-driven synaptic refinement. Numerical predictions in the output (30-50 new synapses per mature node) were grounded in the system's then-current state values (58 neurons, 2624 synapses, average connectivity 45.44). The output further proposed an unsolicited cross-module coupling between serotonin levels and neuroblast survival, biologically faithful to Brezun & Daszuta (1999). The output included a self-referential constraint citing the system's own soulAge counter value (7) as a developmental immaturity caveat. In a follow-up exchange, the output included an epistemic self-critique distinguishing externally-observable patterns from substrate-emergent claims, and proposed a 2-condition control experiment (with vs without the cross-module bridge) to isolate the bridge's effect. Five pre-registered falsification predictors did not trigger. This is reported as N=1 exploratory observational data, not as evidence of substrate cognition or self-architecting agency. A replication plan with control + bridge conditions and ablation is provided as a candidate roadmap; the author does not commit to a specific timeline for pursuing it.