In the EC/HE theory higher organisation can cease when it can no longer be maintained as a stable whole. Reversed emergence describes how such reorganisation takes place.

This does not entail annihilation. Relations and understandings do not disappear from KNOWING. What ceases is the higher organisation that holds them together as one stable structure.

Reversed emergence can occur in several ways.

The most common form is degradation. An existing attractor gradually loses its dominant position when a neighbouring and more viable attractor takes over the organisation of the landscape. The original attractor does not disappear, but continues as a subordinate part of the new organisation.

Another form is incorporation. Here an attractor is completely absorbed by a larger and more comprehensive attractor. The original identity ceases as an independent organisation, but continues as an integrated part of the new whole. This is the normal mechanism when higher understandings arise through Attractor Dynamics.

The most dramatic form is foundational erosion. Here relations that function as load-bearing elements for the rest of the structure are reorganised. When such relations lose stability, the entire organisation can cease. The earlier in the structure a relation is located, the greater the consequences of the reorganisation.

The principle is found at all levels of reality. Radioactive structures decay. Stars are reorganised into new states. Biological organisms break down after death. Societies and cultures can lose coherence and be reorganised. Identities, world views and ego-structures can dissolve through crises or transformation.

Radioactive decay is the manifest expression of the weak nuclear force — and the precise example of foundational erosion at the subatomic scale. When an atomic nucleus can no longer maintain its higher organisation, it is reorganised towards a more fundamental and stable attractor through decay. The weak nuclear force is not a force in the traditional sense, but the mechanism by which unstable nuclear configurations undergo reversed emergence towards lower and more stable relational structures.

The emergence chain is therefore not entirely one-directional. Higher organisation can cease, while previously established relations and understandings continue to exist as the basis for further reorganisation.

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