The Physics of Becoming

The First Law of Moral Proportion

Authors: Jordan Vallejo and the Transformation Management Institute™ Research Group

Status: Monograph A4 | October 2025

I. Introduction

Human groups depend on a stable understanding of events to act together. When interpretation is reliable, cooperation requires little effort and coordinated action emerges naturally. When interpretation weakens, people experience the same moment through different reference points, and coordination slows as each individual reconstructs meaning privately.

These divergences are often attributed to communication gaps or personality differences, but the pattern appears across groups, cultures, and eras. Interpretation becomes inconsistent when the variables that stabilize it lose proportion relative to the pressures acting against them. The Physics of Becoming formalizes this dynamic. It describes the structural balance that makes interpretation stable and the proportional conditions under which meaning reorganizes.

II. Human Proportion Sense: The Ancient Origin of Interpretive Stability

Human beings developed proportional awareness as a fundamental survival function. Early groups depended on the ability to detect small deviations in patterns, such as changes in movement, tone, or environmental cues. These detections enabled rapid, coordinated responses. Long before formal reasoning or institutional systems existed, the nervous system monitored the relationship between what was expected, what was observed, and what those observations implied.

This awareness operated continuously. Individuals recognized when patterns no longer matched prior conditions, when behavior shifted, or when signals did not reinforce one another. These early detection mechanisms were not optional. They enabled groups to respond to instability before risks intensified.

As societies expanded, the same proportional sensitivity supported early governance. Communities did not require formal training to recognize when leaders’ explanations matched observable conditions or when structural routines remained predictable. Shared proportional awareness provided a collective ability to evaluate stability. When truth held, when signals aligned, and when structure remained coherent, groups coordinated with minimal strain.

Modern environments activate this same detection system. People notice when organizational messages do not match observed priorities, when decisions require more justification than usual, or when inconsistencies accumulate across roles or units. These cues produce recognizable behavioral shifts: increased verification, cautious inquiry, shortened conversational bandwidth, or indirect communication. These behaviors are not traits or attitudes, they are proportion-based adjustments rooted in ancient survival mechanisms.

The First Law of Moral Proportion formalizes this inherited architecture. It translates intuitive proportional detection into structural terms. Interpretation remains stable only when its stabilizing variables outweigh the pressures acting against them. When that balance weakens, meaning reorganizes in predictable ways.

III. Why Interpretation Becomes Inconsistent

Interpretation becomes inconsistent when stabilizing supports cannot keep pace with emerging pressures. This instability arises when information does not maintain a consistent reference to observable conditions, when signals conflict, or when structural pathways no longer organize activity predictably. As these pressures accumulate, inconsistencies build at a rate the system cannot absorb, and individuals begin forming divergent conclusions from the same events.

These dynamics appear quickly in modern organizations. Routine work requires additional context-setting. Individuals verify direction after meetings because stated priorities and operational behavior do not fully align. People hesitate to ask direct questions when they sense the answer may shift depending on context. These adaptations are not resistance or disengagement, they reflect proportional imbalance: stabilizing variables weaken while pressures accumulate at a faster rate.

The same pattern appears across families, communities, and civic systems. Where truth references multiply without integration, signals conflict without resolution, or structures lag behind demand, interpretive divergence emerges. The behavior may differ by context, but the structural dynamic is the same: when stabilizing variables lose proportion, meaning fragments.

IV: The First Law of Moral Proportion

Interpretation depends on three stabilizing variables: reliable reference to reality, consistent signals, and coherent structure. When these variables reinforce one another, groups form similar conclusions from the same events. When they diverge, interpretation fragments even among capable and well-intentioned individuals.

The First Law expresses this relationship:

L = (T × P × C) ÷ D

Legitimacy (L) represents the degree to which a system maintains stable, shared interpretation.
Truth Fidelity (T) is the system’s promised reference to observable reality.
Signal Alignment (P) is the consistency of signals relative to truth and to one another.
Structural Coherence (C) is the integrity of the pathways that organize information and activity.
Drift (D) is the rate at which inconsistencies accumulate when stabilizing variables (T, P, C) lose proportion under load; once present, the accumulated inconsistency exerts a destabilizing pressure on interpretation.

The numerator captures stabilizing capacity.
The denominator captures the rate at which pressures degrade that capacity.

The Law does not quantify judgment; it identifies the structural conditions required for judgment to remain reliable. When the numerator remains strong, groups converge on a common understanding. When the denominator increases faster than stabilizers can compensate, interpretation diverges, even without changes in talent, motivation, or intent.

This proportional structure applies across scale. Individuals demonstrate consistent reasoning when their informational, signaling, and structural conditions remain stable. Teams coordinate when their shared environment maintains proportion. Organizations and institutions behave predictably when stabilizers remain stronger than the pressures acting on them. When this proportionality shifts, becoming follows.

V: Becoming and Interpretive Change

Interpretation reorganizes whenever conditions change. Individuals update beliefs as new information becomes available. Teams revise expectations as priorities shift. Organizations restructure when external factors require new modes of coordination. These ongoing adjustments form the process of becoming.

Becoming functions smoothly when stabilizing conditions remain proportional to the rate of change. It becomes difficult when inconsistencies accumulate faster than the system can integrate them. In such conditions, people adapt by narrowing attention to what remains stable, slowing decision-making, verifying assumptions more often, or temporarily withdrawing from ambiguous areas. These responses are not motivational failures but proportional adaptations.

This logic applies at the personal scale as well. People often interpret their past through narratives of personality, insight, or maturity. Proportionism reframes this: individuals interpreted prior events within the informational, signaling, structural, and regulatory conditions available at the time. Growth reflects changes in these conditions rather than changes in fundamental character. Affective Regulation (A) determines the rate at which individuals can integrate contradiction without increasing accumulated inconsistency.

The Physics of Becoming makes these dynamics explicit. Some transitions operate within a stable proportion and feel intuitive. Others exceed structural capacity and produce interpretive disorientation. The underlying variable relationships remain consistent.

VI. Historical Evidence for the First Law

The First Law of Moral Proportion describes a structural pattern observable across eras and contexts. The following cases differ in scale, culture, and technology, yet each demonstrates how interpretation reorganizes when stabilizing variables fall out of proportion relative to the rate of accumulated inconsistency. These narratives serve as structural illustrations rather than comprehensive explanations of historical change.

1. The Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1200 BCE)

Primary variable stress: Structural Coherence (C)

Late Bronze Age societies relied on highly integrated administrative networks connecting palace centers, trade routes, and agricultural regions. These systems functioned because their structural pathways maintained coherence: information, resources, and decisions moved predictably across regions.

When prolonged droughts, seismic disruptions, and external incursions occurred in close succession, structural pathways could no longer reconcile local conditions with regional demands. Coherence weakened below the rate at which new pressures accumulated. Nodes in the network began interpreting conditions independently because no structure could integrate their perspectives fast enough.

Archaeological evidence shows widespread burning of administrative hubs, abandoned trade ports, and rapid decentralization. The pattern aligns with the First Law: when structural coherence degrades faster than inconsistencies can be absorbed, interpretive environments diverge and tightly coupled systems reorganize into smaller, isolated units.

2. The Late Roman Republic (133–27 BCE)

Primary variable stress: Signal Alignment (P)

The Roman Republic depended on consistent signaling practices (elections, vetoes, public rituals, and magistrate authority) to maintain a shared understanding of political meaning. These signals once functioned as stable indicators of legitimacy.

Over the final century of the Republic, identical institutional signals began conveying incompatible intentions. Procedures were used strategically rather than consistently, eroding the signal alignment that had anchored collective interpretation. Citizens and elites interpreted the same events (laws, decrees, emergency powers) through competing frameworks.

As P weakened and inconsistencies accumulated faster than institutional correction cycles, Romans lost a reliable basis for determining what political acts meant. The Republic’s dissolution followed the collapse of a shared signaling environment. Divergence emerged not because people became less capable, but because the system no longer provided aligned signals at the rate required for stability.

3. The Reformation (1517–1648)

Primary variable stress: Truth Fidelity (T)

Before the printing press, truth references in Western Europe were centralized through ecclesiastical authority. With the rapid spread of printing, informational environments diversified faster than any central institution could manage. Communities gained access to texts, translations, and commentaries that differed in emphasis, doctrine, and interpretation.

Truth Fidelity did not erode; it multiplied. Parallel truth references formed at a rate that exceeded the Church’s capacity to integrate or adjudicate them. Communities organized around different informational conditions, constructing meaning from the particular texts and authorities within their networks. Regional identity, language, and politics shaped which truth sources became primary.

In MSS terms, T shifted from a unifying reference to a distributed set of promised realities. Interpretation reorganized accordingly. The Reformation reveals how a rapid increase in competing truth references permanently alters meaning systems, even when the underlying structures and social conditions remain outwardly similar.

4. The Great Depression (1929–1933)

Primary variable stress: Drift (D)

In the late 1920s, financial and economic indicators diverged significantly. Rising market valuations coexisted with weakening industrial output, consumer debt, fragile banking structures, and unaddressed global imbalances. Contradictory signals accumulated across sectors, and no institution possessed the authority or analytic framework to integrate them.

The rate of accumulated inconsistency increased steadily. Analysts, policymakers, and investors operated within interpretive environments shaped by incompatible indicators that remained unresolved. When markets corrected rapidly in 1929, the accumulated contradictions overwhelmed institutional structures.

The Depression illustrates Drift as a rate, not an event. Interpretation destabilized long before visible crisis because inconsistencies accumulated faster than systems could integrate or correct them. Once the accumulated pressure exceeded structural capacity, confidence collapsed across multiple domains simultaneously.

5. The COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2022)

Primary variable stress: Multi-variable imbalance (T + P + C)

COVID-19 exposed proportional limitations across global meaning systems. Scientific understanding progressed rapidly, making it difficult to maintain stable truth references. Public health messaging varied across jurisdictions, reducing signal alignment. Structural capacity (healthcare systems, governance processes, and supply chains) was not designed to absorb interpretive variation at pandemic velocity.

Communities formed distinct interpretive environments based on the information they trusted, the signals they received, and the structural conditions they navigated. Even when underlying epidemiological realities were similar, divergences in T, P, and C produced meaning systems that behaved differently.

This moment made the First Law visible in real time: interpretive divergence occurs when stabilizers weaken at different rates and inconsistencies accumulate faster than systems can integrate them. Variation in proportional stability produced globally divergent responses to a shared event.

Scope and Position in the Field

The Physics of Becoming isolates the structural requirements for interpretive stability. It does not evaluate political preferences, cultural values, or ethical commitments except where they influence information, signals, or structure. Meaning System Science treats interpretation as a system class with formal variables and proportional dynamics.

Within the MSS architecture:

• Meaning System Science defines the variables and the general theory.

• The Physics of Becoming establishes their proportional relationships.

• Transformation Science analyzes how meaning reorganizes as those proportions shift.

• Transformation Management applies these principles where coordinated action must be preserved.

This sequencing clarifies the role of each component and preserves the analytic integrity of the discipline.

VII. Conclusion

Interpretation reorganizes whenever its stabilizing variables shift. When information maintains a consistent reference to observable reality, signals reinforce one another, and structures coordinate activity predictably, groups converge on shared understanding with minimal effort. When these stabilizers weaken or reorganize at different rates, inconsistencies accumulate faster than systems can correct them. Meaning diverges not because individuals change but because the architecture supporting interpretation loses proportion.

The First Law of Moral Proportion places this universal human experience on a scientific foundation. It explains why divergence emerges even among aligned individuals and why restoring coherence depends on strengthening stabilizing variables rather than increasing communication or effort. The Physics of Becoming defines the proportional logic governing interpretive stability and locates it within the General Theory of Interpretation.

Meaning is not guaranteed by intention. It is maintained through proportion.

Citation

Vallejo, J. (2025). The Physics of Becoming: The First Law of Moral Proportion. Monograph A4. Transformation Management Institute™ Scientific Monograph Series.

References

Bronze Age Collapse
Cline, E. H. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Princeton University Press, 2014.
Middleton, G. D. Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Late Roman Republic
Flower, H. I. Roman Republics. Princeton University Press, 2010.
Gruen, E. S. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. University of California Press, 1974.

Reformation
Eisenstein, E. L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. Cambridge University Press, 1979.
MacCulloch, D. The Reformation: A History. Viking, 2005.

Great Depression
Galbraith, J. K. The Great Crash 1929. Houghton Mifflin, 1954.
Kindleberger, C. P. The World in Depression: 1929–1939. University of California Press, 1973.

COVID-19 Pandemic
Fisman, D. et al. “COVID-19 Case and Contact Management: Public Health Communication Challenges.” The Lancet Public Health (2021).
World Health Organization. COVID-19 Situation Reports. WHO, 2020–2022.
Tufekci, Z. “We Need to Talk About How Covid Ended.” The New York Times, 2022.