MATE: A Deterministic Affective Middleware for LLM-Based Companions with Emergent Character and Persistent Internal State
Authors/Creators
Description
We present MATE, a deterministic affective middleware that gives any LLM persistent emotions, evolving character, and emergent behavioral properties. The kernel is a pure function — transition(state, event) → new_state — with zero LLM calls and full reproducibility.
Where Anthropic (2026) identified 171 transient emotion concept vectors within Claude, MATE provides the architectural substrate for these functional emotions to persist, accumulate, and produce emergent character over weeks of interaction. The LLM supplies the moment; MATE supplies the lifetime.
MATE integrates 20+ theories from neuroscience, psychology, and quantum cognition into eight modules: (1) quantum probability formalism (8×8 density matrices with Lindblad decoherence); (2) dual-process habituation; (3) a 30-trait character system from clinical psychology; (4) inner state with tastes, aspirations, and opponent-process dynamics; (5) a 7-dimensional memory graph with somatic markers, pheromone narrative threads (Mycelium), ecphoric enrichment, and bridge inference during sleep; (6) a 5-axis awareness field; (7) allostatic mood regulation; and (8) a cognitive autopoietic loop (SPARK) where beliefs modulate perception and perception updates beliefs — measured in production with 910 telemetry events, zero runaways.
Deployed with 11 users over 63 days (3,459 messages, 66,245 graph nodes, 184,763 edges, 659,252 telemetry events), the same deterministic code produces measurably different characters depending on interaction history. A three-condition controlled comparison (N=48, MATE vs Context-only vs Bare LLM) confirms the kernel's independent contribution: emoji suppression 0% vs 54% (χ²=33.0, p<10⁻⁸), state-driven content depth (median 148 vs 70 chars, p<10⁻⁴).
We document five levels of emergent self-referential behavior — from imposter syndrome arising from two floating-point numbers to real-time self-deception awareness — and introduce the MIRROR benchmark for evaluating internal state complexity. The system comprises ~67,000 lines of code with 3,004 tests.
Version 8: Anthropic functional emotions bridge (3 new references), A/B/C controlled comparison, updated production data (63 days, 11 users), Living Memory section (Mycelium + Ecphoric + Bridge Inference + Salience), refreshed MIRROR scores, new figures.
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paper_v8.pdf
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Additional details
Related works
- Is new version of
- Preprint: 10.5281/zenodo.19209777 (DOI)
- References
- Preprint: 10.48550/arXiv.2604.07729 (DOI)
- Preprint: 10.48550/arXiv.2507.21509 (DOI)
- Preprint: 10.48550/arXiv.2510.11328 (DOI)
Dates
- Updated
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2026-03-29Version 5 (neurophysics, quantum expansion, DEE, token optimization)
- Updated
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2026-03-31Version 6 (anticipated criticisms, honest emergence decomposition, corrected claims, updated production data)
- Updated
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2026-04-07Version 7 (SPARK autopoietic loop — 212 production measurements, Di Paolo enactivist framing, 3 new figures, updated statistics to 73K LOC / 1,594 tests / 23,808 nodes)
- Updated
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2026-05-26Version 8 (Anthropic functional emotions bridge — 3 new references linking to emotion vectors paper 2604.07729. A/B/C controlled comparison N=48 with statistical significance. Production data updated: 63 days, 11 users, 3,459 messages, 659K telemetry events, 14,037 constructs. Living Memory section: Mycelium pheromone threads, ecphoric enrichment, bridge inference, salience-driven attention. Refreshed MIRROR scores.
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