Physics of Command
Semantic Attractors
Semantic attractors are stable configurations of meaning toward which new information is repeatedly drawn.
What It Explains
The problem this framework makes visible.
Why the same event can produce radically different interpretations across organizations, teams, or systems.
System Mechanism
How the failure forms.
A mission, doctrine, threat model, or institutional identity becomes dominant.
New information enters the interpretive field.
Ambiguous signals are pulled toward the meanings the system already recognizes.
Contradictory evidence is reframed, discounted, or absorbed.
The attractor stabilizes interpretation and action.
Failure Signatures
What an observer would see.
Repeated reinterpretation of contradictory evidence
Different organizations assigning incompatible meaning to the same event
Increasing difficulty updating the dominant explanation
Narrative persistence after environmental change