93. Stability and reorganisation
No manifest structure is absolutely permanent. All stabilities are local and temporary expressions of Attractor Dynamics in KNOWING — and they last as long as the attractor’s strength is sufficient to maintain dominance in the landscape around it.
Attractor strength is determined by two interwoven factors: relational support and compression. A strong attractor is anchored in many supporting relations and has incorporated much previous understanding. When support weakens — because new relations arise, because the surroundings are reorganised, or because a more viable attractor grows up nearby — the attractor gradually loses its dominance. The system then necessarily reorganises towards the new attractor, the one that now has greater organising force in the landscape.
This applies at all levels. Stars collapse when core pressure no longer balances gravitation. Species become extinct when relational conditions no longer support their attractor structure. Societies reorganise when dominant cultural attractors lose relational support. Thoughts dissolve and identities break down when the attractors that held them stable are weakened by new experiences and understandings.
Reorganisation does not necessarily entail greater complexity. Attractors can break down just as much as they build up. Higher organisations can collapse back towards simpler and more fundamental stabilities — as seen in black holes, biological degeneration, psychological breakdown or the collapse of civilisations. The direction is not determined by any overarching plan, but by which attractor at any given moment has the greatest organising force in the relevant landscape.
The universe is not a linear developmental process. It is a continuous dynamic landscape in which stabilisation, destabilisation and reorganisation proceed at all levels and scales through the Experience Circle. There is no final finished state — only sustained movement towards the next stable form.