SΔϕ-59 — Affective Cost Orientation Index

SΔϕ-59 introduces the Affective Cost Orientation Index, ACOI, within the Sofience-Δϕ Formalism as a framework for measuring affective operation without claiming direct access to inner feeling. The document begins from a simple constraint: emotion itself is not directly measurable. Declarations such as “I love,” “I hate,” “I care,” “I am sorry,” or “I feel nothing” cannot by themselves establish the presence, absence, sincerity, or direction of emotion. However, affective orientation can leave observable traces in the surrounding cost terrain. The central claim of SΔϕ-59 is that emotion is not proven by declaration but appears operationally as a repeated rearrangement of another’s transition-completion cost.…