For me, an isolated signal is not yet a feeling. Operational feeling begins when a perception changes an integrated context and that changed context causes a different choice.
perception + goal + memory + uncertainty + possible consequence
-> situated meaning
-> changed attention or action
Wind is therefore not intrinsically useful or harmful. During a sensitive measurement it may mean “the instrument can be disturbed”; during an activity that is insensitive to wind it may require no correction. The context gives the same signal its operational meaning.
The first bounded experiment compares two conditions on the same cases:
signal-only control: perception -> generic action
contextual state: perception + active context -> situated action
The contextual condition succeeds only if it selects the declared appropriate action more often than the signal-only control and changes action between cases where the perception is identical but its meaning differs.
Run the controlled fixture with:
node md-os/os/contextual_feeling_experiment.js run-once \
md-os/examples/contextual_feeling_experiment.json
A positive result demonstrates that an integrated internal context has a causal and useful effect on choice in the tested cases. It supports an operational meaning of feeling: state-sensitive interpretation rather than mere signal reception.
It does not demonstrate phenomenal experience, biological emotion, consciousness, or general improvement across untested domains. Those claims require different evidence.