Neutrality Delays Resolution

This note proves the formal lemma underlying the S₂ stabilization signature: when competing outcomes resolve through evidence accumulation under constraints, weakening the effective bias toward one outcome lengthens the expected time to resolve. For a one-dimensional drift-diffusion process with fixed symmetric absorbing boundaries at ±a and start point z = 0, the expected first-passage time admits the closed form E[τ] = (a/μ)·tanh(aμ/σ²) — strictly maximized at zero drift, decreasing monotonically as the bias magnitude |μ| grows, and attaining the diffusion-only ceiling a²/σ² at μ = 0.

The note states the theorem, proves it self-contained from the Kolmogorov backward equation, gives an explicit critical-bias threshold, and identifies the cross-domain empirical signature it predicts: resolution latency rising to a finite ceiling as independently audited constraint asymmetry approaches zero. Sequential-testing, metastability/Kramers, and absorbing-Markov pictures are retained as analogies, not parallel bounds. Its operational pair, Methods-S₂, turns the bound into a deployable latency-curve audit.

What acceptance commits you to. Acceptance of this note commits the reader only to the conditional bound under the stated drift-diffusion formalism — not to Universal Collapse Theory, and not to the claim that any particular real-world latency reflects genuine neutrality. That is what the paired audit tests.

Keywords: drift-diffusion; first-passage time; constraint asymmetry; resolution latency; S₂ signature.