The Physics of Becoming

Authors: Jordan Vallejo and the Transformation Management Institute Research Group

Status: Monograph A4 | October 2025

I. Introduction

Meaning System Science defines interpretation as a system behavior that governs action under constraint. This monograph contributes a single, bounded component of that framework: it specifies the proportional stability constraint that limits interpretive reliability and explains how reliability changes over time as systems operate under load, variation, and boundary interaction.

The Physics of Becoming centers on one claim: Interpretive reliability is constrained by proportional relationships among stabilizing conditions relative to the rate at which unresolved inconsistency accumulates.

This monograph does not define interpretive events, commitment timing, binding, governance regimes, authorization doctrine, or diagnostic procedures. Those constructs are specified elsewhere in the canon. A4 supplies the constraint lens that those analyses presuppose.

All claims in this monograph apply only within a declared meaning-system boundary and membership condition, as defined in Meaning System Science (A2). Proportional stability cannot be evaluated when the system-object shifts mid-analysis.

II. Proportional Detection in Everyday Coordination

Systems often register proportional strain before they can describe it formally. Participants sense increasing mismatch between expectation, observation, and consequence. Clarification increases. Commitments slow. Verification becomes more explicit. Escalation routes appear earlier.

These shifts are not preferences or cultural styles. They are adaptive responses to an interpretive environment whose stabilizing conditions no longer support the throughput and variability being processed.

Modern environments intensify proportional detection by increasing variation. More channels, faster update cycles, denser interfaces, and automated output generation raise interpretive demand faster than verification, correction, and integration capacity can scale. The Physics of Becoming explains why these signals co-occur: interpretive stability depends on proportion, not on the absolute strength of any single stabilizer.

III. The Instability Mechanism

Interpretive instability is rarely produced by a single deficiency. It emerges when update velocities diverge across stabilizing conditions.

Verification updates more slowly than signaling. Structural pathways change in discrete revisions that often lag operating reality. Correction capacity does not scale automatically with throughput. When these velocities fall out of proportion, inconsistencies stop resolving locally. Contradictions persist across handoffs. Downstream actions inherit unresolved mismatch.

Over time, drift becomes observable as a post-crystallization phenomenon: unresolved inconsistencies accumulate faster than they can be integrated into governing baselines.

Two common observable failure patterns often appear under proportional strain:

• Constraint Failure (KF): evaluative constraints are ambiguous, inconsistent, or unenforceable, preventing convergence.

• Closure Failure (CF): revision permeability is restricted after closure, so contradictions cannot route to authoritative correction.

These are not causes and not variables. They are diagnostic manifestations of proportional strain. Their mechanics and propagation are specified in Monograph A7.

IV. The Proportional Stability Constraint

Interpretive reliability depends on a bounded set of stabilizing conditions that jointly constrain whether a system can produce shared meaning reliably enough to coordinate action over time.

The Proportional Stability Constraint formalizes this dependency.

IV.1 The Proportional Stability Index (PSI)

The constraint is represented diagnostically by the Proportional Stability Index (PSI):

PSI = T × P × C / D

Where:

• Truth Fidelity (T): the integrity of promised reference and verification discipline

• Signal Alignment (P): the convergence of signals and authority weighting on shared reference

• Structural Coherence (C): the usability and continuity of pathways for decision, correction, and closure

• Drift (D): the post-crystallization rate at which unresolved inconsistencies accumulate

PSI is a diagnostic index, not a governance judgment. It does not determine authorization, legitimacy, or regime status. Those are classified at binding and through regime doctrine defined elsewhere.

PSI estimates whether stabilizing conditions remain proportionate to the rate of inconsistency accumulation within a declared system-object. Changing the boundary or membership condition changes what PSI describes.

IV.2 What PSI Is—and Is Not

PSI is:

• a comparative indicator of proportional stability

• evaluable only from checkable traces

• meaningful only within a declared boundary and time window

PSI is not:

• legitimacy

• moral judgment

• authorization status

• a causal law

• a substitute for governance doctrine

Affective Regulation (A) remains part of the MSS architecture. It conditions correction capacity and therefore shapes trajectories of T, P, C, and D over time, but it is not included in the PSI computation to preserve diagnostic comparability.

V. Becoming

Interpretation changes because conditions change.

Tools, policies, role definitions, authority structures, and interfaces alter what is checkable, which signals carry weight, how interpretation routes, and how quickly contradiction can reach correction. Each change shifts proportional relationships among stabilizers and drift rate.

Becoming names this motion under proportional constraint.

Some transitions remain within correction capacity and feel continuous. Others exceed it, producing persistent mismatch that reduces the portability of interpretation across contexts and time. This does not imply error, incompetence, or bad faith at formation. An interpretation is produced within the stabilizers available at the time. When those stabilizers change, interpretation can change without retroactive defect.

This distinction preserves the possibility of revision without denial.

VI. Structural Illustrations of the Constraint

The following examples are structural illustrations, not empirical validations. Each highlights a dominant proportional stress pattern and the coordination signature that followed.

1. Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1200 BCE)

Dominant stress: Structural Coherence (C)
Signature: integrative pathways failed; local interpretation became decisive
Read: when routing degrades faster than contradictions can be integrated, coupled systems fragment into smaller interpretive units

2. Late Roman Republic (133–27 BCE)

Dominant stress: Signal Alignment (P)
Signature: identical procedures yielded incompatible interpretations
Read: when authority signals diverge, shared interpretation collapses even if structure persists

3. The Reformation (1517–1648)

Dominant stress: Truth Fidelity (T)
Signature: parallel reference regimes formed without reconcilable correction
Read: when reference divergence outruns integration capacity, systems reorganize into non-comparable domains

4. The Great Depression (1929–1933)

Dominant stress: Drift (D)
Signature: contradiction accumulated across coupled domains before visible collapse
Read: drift is a rate condition; accumulation can overwhelm stabilizers rapidly once thresholds are crossed

5. COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2022)

Dominant stress: multi-variable strain (T + P + C), amplified by coupling
Signature: divergent interpretive environments across interfaces
Read: instability followed differential stabilizer velocity, not uniform failure of intent or competence

VII. Canonical Placement

Within the A-Series:

• A2 defines meaning systems and the minimal variable architecture

• A4 specifies the proportional stability constraint and becoming under time and load

• A5 constrains inference discipline (Proportionism)

• A7 specifies forces, dynamics, failure modes, and propagation

Measurement posture and normalization are defined in the Proportional Stability Diagnostic Protocol (PSDP). Governance authorization and regime doctrine are defined on the PCMR and DMR pages.

VIII. Conclusion

Interpretive reliability is bounded by proportional relationships among stabilizing conditions relative to the rate at which unresolved inconsistency accumulates. When those relationships fall out of proportion, instability is not mysterious and not psychological. It is structural.

Systems that ask agents to commit, comply, or decide assume proportional responsibilities: reference must remain maintainable, signals must converge, pathways must route correction, and contradiction must be admitted before drift overwhelms comparability.

Becoming is time acting on proportion.

Citation

Vallejo, J. (2025). The Physics of Becoming. Monograph A4. Transformation Management Institute Scientific Monograph Series.