Part IV: Social Bonds

Contamination

Introduction

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Contamination

Incentive contamination occurs when two relationship-type manifolds $\viable_{R_1}$ and $\viable_{R_2}$ are instantiated in the same dyadic relationship and their gradients conflict:

\nabla \viable_{R_1} \cdot \nabla \viable_{R_2} < 0

The system receives contradictory gradient signals. Movement toward viability in one relationship type moves away from viability in the other. Valence becomes uncomputable because the system cannot determine whether its trajectory is approach or avoidance.

Example (The Transactional Friendship). Two people are friends. One begins evaluating the friendship instrumentally: What am I getting out of this? Is the reciprocity balanced? The friendship manifold $\viable_F$ requires that mutual flourishing be constitutive (not instrumental). The transaction manifold $\viable_T$ requires that exchange be explicit and balanced. These gradients conflict:

Under $\viable_F$ : You visit your sick friend because their suffering is yours (expanded self-model).
Under $\viable_T$ : You visit your sick friend because they will owe you later (exchange accounting).

The same action has opposite gradient meanings under the two manifolds. The friend can detect this—not cognitively, but phenomenologically. The visit feels wrong. The aesthetic response is precise: something that should be free is being priced.

Notice the specificity of the discomfort. It is not that the friend dislikes being visited. The visit is welcome. What is unwelcome is the shadow manifold—the faint presence of a transactional gradient beneath the care gradient. The detection system responds to the shadow, not the surface. This is why the transactional friend is more disturbing than the honest businessman: the businessman is transparently on the transaction manifold; the transactional friend is on two manifolds at once, and only one of them is visible. The disturbance lives in the gap between what is presented and what is detected.

If the manifold framework is correct, humans should possess a pre-cognitive detection system for incentive contamination. The predicted phenomenology:

Disgust at transactional friendship ("being used")
Unease at therapeutic boundary violations ("my therapist wants to be my friend")
Revulsion at commodified intimacy that presents as genuine connection
Suspicion at unsolicited generosity from strangers ("what do they want?")

These aesthetic responses would operate below deliberative cognition—the affect system detecting gradient conflict before conscious reasoning catches up. This is testable: response latencies should be fast relative to deliberative moral judgment.

Proposed Experiment

Contamination detection study. Present participants with vignette pairs: same action (e.g., a friend helping you move) with subtle cues indicating either clean or contaminated manifolds (e.g., the friend later mentions a favor they need). Measure: (1) affect response latency and valence via facial EMG and skin conductance, (2) explicit moral judgment, (3) whether the affect response precedes and predicts the moral judgment. If the framework is right, the physiological disgust response should appear within 500ms—before any deliberative processing—and should correlate with the degree of gradient conflict in the vignette, not with the surface-level action.

Cross-cultural validity. Run the same protocol across cultures with different norms about reciprocity (e.g., gift economies vs.\ market economies). The framework predicts that the detection of manifold mismatch should be universal, even if the norms about which manifolds are appropriate differ. If contamination detection is culturally learned rather than structurally inevitable, cross-cultural variation should be large and should track specific cultural norms rather than abstract gradient conflict.

If this detection system exists, it would mean that the "aesthetics of incentive structure" are not cultural preferences but something closer to geometric detection—the feeling that something is off about a relationship would be the affect system registering contradictory gradients. Social disgust would be to incentive contamination what physical disgust is to toxin detection. But this analogy may be too strong. Physical disgust has clear evolutionary lineage; whether social-manifold detection shares that lineage or is instead learned through development is an open question.

Open Question

Is manifold-contamination detection innate, developmental, or culturally constructed? Children develop sensitivity to "fairness" early (by age 3–4), which suggests something structural. But the specific manifold types they detect may be culturally shaped. We need developmental data: at what age do children first show the contamination-disgust response? Does it track the same timeline as physical disgust (early) or moral reasoning (later)? If the former, the case for structural detection is stronger.

The inverse signal is equally telling—or at least, we predict it should be. Anonymous generosity—giving without the possibility of reciprocity, recognition, or reward—produces a distinctive positive aesthetic response. The detection system is confirming that no contaminating manifold is present: the gift operates on the care manifold alone. This is why anonymous charity tends to be more moving than public charity, why surprise gifts from strangers can bring tears. Whether this is because the detection system is registering manifold purity, or because of simpler mechanisms (surprise, norm violation), would need to be tested directly.