ICARUS+E: Minimal Evaluative Differentiation Beyond Non-Representational Regulation

This work introduces ICARUS+E, a minimal structural extension of the ICARUS frameworkobtained by relaxing the constraint of non-evaluativity. The purpose of this extension is notto introduce meaning, reference, or cognition, but to formally characterize the consequences ofintroducing evaluative differentiation into an otherwise dynamically closed, non-representationalregulatory system.We show that evaluative differentiation (E) can exist without representation (R), while alsoproving that E makes the subsequent emergence of reference structurally unavoidable. The resultestablishes ICARUS+E as a precise intermediate layer between non-representational regulationand representational architectures.