Abstract Introduction: The Hidden Labor of Reality Contact The Objective Stack Terminates Too Early Geometry Before Semantics Valence as Gradient Alignment Arousal as Update Rate Integration as Irreducibility Effective Rank as Representational Breadth Counterfactual Weight as Possible-Future Processing Self-Effect as Causal Authorship of Observation Curiosity, Creativity, and Intelligence as Objective Geometry Curiosity as Epistemic Approach Creativity as Affordance-Opening Compression Intelligence as Transition-Geometry Alignment Instrumentation Work The Event Stream Is Not a Log Streams Global Belief Ledger and Transient Streams The Objective as Trajectory Functional Gradient Entry Points The Chemistry Robot as Experimental Aperture Calibration as Organ Bootstrapping The Minimal pH-Strip Demo Hypotheses H1: Curiosity as a Baseline Attractor H2: Calibration Reflex H3: Constructed Measurement Beats Direct Perception H4: Self-Effect Forces Self-Modeling H5: Creativity as Reusable Measurement Compression H6: Language Is Cheap Event-Derived Measurements Ablations Failure Modes The Frontier: Objective Geometry Discussion: Making the World Answerable Conclusion Candidate Implementation Stack Minimal Event Schema Prompt Skeleton for Neutral Lab Mode Compressed Falsification Map