Synthetic Counteradaptation

The three-beat cycle mutation → adaptation → counteradaptation (an agent adapting to another agent's adaptation) played between an organic and an artificial agent. "Synthetic" is doubled: artificially made, and Hegelian Aufhebung — the two agents are cancelled-and-preserved into a higher-order relation from which each now takes its meaning, so every adaptation remains operative as a scaffold for the next. Demonstrated in Go (Move 37 → Move 78 → FAR AI's adversarial tutor) and three scenarios (watermark arms races, Turing's Island, countersimulation). Two payoffs: counteradaptation presupposes opacity (a perfect predictor forecloses it), and alignment should "steer not the agent but the conditions of mutation." The Red Queen caveat: the cycle need not produce net robustness.