What we’re witnessing isn’t collapse—it’s entropic diffusion in a hyperconnected world. As signal density increases, meaning loses its shape and becomes multiplicity. That multiplicity converges—not toward clarity, but toward attractors: points of silence, incoherence, or loss. These attractors aren’t designed—they emerge from the system’s own structure, from the way things flow when nothing can hold. When political or social systems are saturated beyond their ability to adapt, they don’t explode. They loop. They simplify. They revert.
High-dimensional systems forget forward—they retreat into recursive, lower-order patterns that once worked, and in doing so, forget what made them work. This isn’t regression. It’s feedback saturation. And what follows is a harmonic outline of that process: a list of structural self-amplifications that recur wherever communication systems lose their centre and drift toward their own edges.
1. Transmissibility
What spreads survives. It doesn’t need to be right—just easy to carry.
Systems favour forms that reduce resistance and move cleanly through dense networks.
2. Compression
To move fast, ideas shrink. Detail falls away.
Compression allows signal to cross thresholds—but every reduction adds tension downstream.
3. Recursive Saturation
When output loops back in as input, the signal bloats and blurs.
Overexposure creates similarity—complexity collapses into repetition.
4. Entropy Gradient
Structure leans into drift. Everything follows the slope.
Probability drives systems toward more likely states—entropy guides the flow of form.
5. Symbolic Drift
Meaning slides. Names slip. The context moves, even if the word stays.
Over time, symbols detach and reform under pressure—semantic stability erodes.
6. Cognitive Economy
Shortcuts save time, but they cost precision.
The mind trades accuracy for efficiency when data exceeds capacity.
7. Semiotic Amplification
Repetition builds weight. Familiarity feels like truth.
Signal repeated becomes structure—feedback gives shape to perception.
8. Surface Coherence
It looks whole. That’s enough to keep it going.
Perception seeks pattern—clarity on the outside hides noise within.
9. Feedback Volatility
Little things spiral. Loops tighten. Then the system jumps.
Recursive inputs accelerate instability—nonlinearity magnifies the unexpected.
10. Phase Lag
By the time a system reacts, the moment has changed.
Delays in response create mismatch—old signals act on new realities.
11. Control Displacement
You don’t steer the system. The system steers you.
Agency dissolves into structure—behaviour follows form, not will.
12. Memetic Resonance
Some ideas hum with what’s already there. That’s why they spread.
Resonance synchronises weak signals with the ambient rhythm of the system.
13. Frictionless Virality
No friction means no filter. Anything moves.
Speed overwhelms context—when nothing resists, everything spreads.
14. Heuristic Erosion
Mental shortcuts wear thin. They crack under load.
Simplifications fail when stressed—complex systems exceed old frames.
15. Substrate Instability
The ground shifts under the message. You don’t see it.
Mediums distort what they carry—nothing travels unchanged.
16. Recombinatorial Decay
Too much mixing flattens everything.
Novelty loses edge when repetition outweighs difference—creativity dissolves into pattern fatigue.
17. Signal Persistence
Old messages don’t leave. They shape the new by lingering.
Residuals from past transmissions constrain future states—they echo in the gaps.
18. Topological Coercion
Some things just can’t exist here. The shape won’t allow them.
System geometry limits expression—structure defines what’s possible.
19. Linguistic Overfitting
Words tuned too tightly to the now can’t survive the shift.
Precision without slack breaks—language fails when conditions change faster than meaning adapts.
Daedelus Kite 