Coherence Factor

The Coherence Factor is the measure of how strongly a substrate wave function stays correlated with itself across a time interval, running from perfect self-coherence to complete decoherence. The book uses it at the quantum-classical boundary: its behavior there shows how the substrate's discrete nature sets the limits of classical description, in a chapter that reads quantum interference patterns as computational echoes of the substrate's recursive architecture and wave-particle duality as a signature of binary substrate interactions. A value of 1 means the state is fully coherent with itself; a value of 0 means the correlation has been lost entirely. The current definition gives it as C(Δt) = |⟨Ψ(t)|Ψ(t+Δt)⟩|², the squared overlap of the substrate wave function Ψ at time t with itself at t + Δt, with C(0) = 1 for perfect self-coherence and C(∞) = 0 for complete decoherence. It connects to Decoherence Transition, Decoherence Mechanisms, Phase Coherence and the Field-to-Form Transition.