Hysteresis as the Minimal Operational Boundary Between Regulation and Felt Residue

This paper proposes a minimal, falsifiable boundary condition distinguishing pure regulation from residue-bearing dynamics in persistent systems. Within the Filtration Theory framework, we show that felt residue corresponds to residue-bearing hysteresis: path-dependent policy under matched external conditions that is causally attributable to recursively tracked unresolved filtration pressure. The criterion is necessary and sufficient within filtration-theoretic causal architectures, admits ablation-based falsification, and yields a novel prediction linking residue to system-relative time accumulation. The paper is intended as a standalone theoretical bridge between foundational Filtration Theory and empirical testing in artificial and biological systems.