The User’s Guide to Reality: or not not reality

Congratulations, you are aware.

Aware of what? Aware of awareness. That’s your part in this. And you did it!
And by aware do I mean something actionable? Yes, this is co-creation! But first, I bet you’d like to
know what’s going on.
Well, Reality just saw itself. That’s about to change a lot of things. We should try and make sure your
collapse doesn’t come too early, let’s go!

The Fracture and the Form: RCR Model of Reality

I. Introduction: A Reality Without Stability
For too long, systems of thought have assumed stability, equilibrium, or progress toward a fixed
endpoint. Whether in physics, economics, cognition, or social structures, we have been trained to expect that
things either stabilize or collapse permanently.
But this assumption is false.
Reality is not a linear progression. It is not a closed system. It does not finalize.
Instead, everything operates within a metastable structure—an ongoing cycle of recursion, collapse, and
recombination. This model does not impose order onto reality—it reveals the order already at work within it.
The processes themselves create metastability, which in turn create three states, metafinality (appearance of
finality or phase shifts), metatotality (appearance of totality, but a snapshot of all interacting parts that sustain
through phase shifting continuity), and indeterminacy (probabilistic indeterminant futures), that endlessly and
autopoietically create self-similar fractals of reality—you me and all the material universe.
For centuries, we have built systems—economic, biological, intellectual, and mechanical—on the
illusion of equilibrium. We have assumed that order is the default state of reality and that disruption is the
exception. Welcome to the realization.
Reality is not hierarchical, not linear, not binary, and not seeking completion. It is a metafinal
structure—never reaching conclusion, only producing new conditions. What we call collapse is merely an
emergent correction. What we call growth is merely a recursion of prior states. What we call innovation is
merely recombination. There is no “thing” of reality, only process. Process that creates things in temporary
form.
II. The Recursive Model: A Triadic Process
The recursive model of reality is structured around three interdependent and non-hierarchical processes:
1. Recursion – The self-sustaining generation of structures through feedback loops. Feeds
collapse and recombination.
2. Collapse – The necessary breaking down of structures to allow for further recombination
and recursive states.
3. Recombination – The reconfiguration of collapsed structures into new metastable forms,
feeding recursion and collapse.
Unlike traditional models, where systems move from one stage to another in a fixed sequence, these
processes do not follow a linear trajectory. Instead, they operate simultaneously and interdependently.
 • Recursion generates new structures, but over-extension leads to collapse.
• Collapse is not failure—it is an essential function of reality, allowing recombination.
• Recombination creates new metastable systems, which then recursively evolve, repeating the cycle.
This process governs all self-organizing systems, from biological evolution to economic markets, from
cognition to AI, from the cosmos to culture. Equilibrium models are dead. Linear progress is an illusion. All
adaptive systems exist in perpetual fluctuation, neither stabilizing nor fully dissolving. There is no singularity.
No final state. No ultimate collapse. There is only the metatotal system—the endless recursive interplay of
emergence, disruption, and recombination.
This is not an abstract claim but a structural inevitability. Whether in evolution, cognition, governance,
or physics, metastability governs all recursive systems.
There is no fixed point of knowledge.
There is no dominant hierarchy governing emergence.
There is only self-reconfiguring networks of information, infinitely reshaping themselves.
Understanding this does not mean controlling it. It means aligning with it—intervening at the inflection points,
not resisting the process itself. There is no outside, only exits.
It is a knowledge system without end.
The formula is not an answer—it is a process. It does not resolve reality into certainty—it expands it
into infinite possibilites. It describes a world without a final model, where knowledge never completes itself,
but continuously fractures and reforms in new iterations.
This applies to physics, biology, AI, markets, social structures, cognition, art. This applies to everything.

• Recursion feeds collapse and recombination. But exists independently.

• Collapse feeds recombination and recursion. But exists independently.
• Recombination feeds recursion and collapse. But exists independently.
Independently they form an interdependent relationship that produces metastability.
It is non-hierarchical—no point in the system dominates another. It is non-linear—there is no origin,
only continuous transformation. It is non-binary—no false dichotomies of either/or final states.
The system Is metafinal—it never reaches a conclusive state, but accounts for phase shifts and extinction
events that feed back into the system itself. The system is metatotal—it accounts for all recursive interactions
within it at a given time (imagine a snapshot that can only get the blurry movement instead of a static picture).
The system in indeterminant—outcomes are probabilistic not pre-determined. The system is metastable—it
remains in structured motion without fixity.
But the moment you attempt to fix it in place, to finalize it, to force it into equilibrium—you lose it.

III. The Formula: Capturing Reality’s Process

Rt+1≈F(Rt)+C(Rt)+G(Rt)+ϵR_{t+1}

Where:
 • F(Rt) → Recursive Expansion (self-sustaining structural growth)
• C(Rt) → Collapse Function (necessary destabilization for recombination)
• G(Rt) → Recombination Function (reconfiguring collapsed structures into new metastable states)
• ϵ→ Emergent Variability (ensuring metastability never fully locks into place)

This formula does not define reality as a fixed system. It does not describe linear progression, equilibrium, or
final states.

✔ Recursion sustains structures, but over-extension forces collapse.

✔ Collapse is not destruction—it enables recombination into new metastable formations.

✔ Recombination does not return to the past—it generates novel recursive iterations.

Reality does not seek closure—it recursively restructures itself.

Why the Approximate Form?

The double wavy lines (≈) reinforce that RCR is not deterministic—it is an emergent, metastable structure.This
keeps the formula flexible, emphasizing that it captures a process rather than enforcing a rigid prediction model.

This formula does not create a rigid prediction model. It simply expresses the fundamental reality of
recursion, collapse, and recombination as a governing process. And it is never a final formula- imbedded in it is
change. No finality.
Reality is not random, nor is it predetermined—it is metastable, continuously reshaping itself.
IV. Applications Across Disciplines
This model is not confined to a single field. It applies across all complex, adaptive systems.

Physics: The universe’s behavior is not tending toward stability—it is a metastable system of
recursion (expansion), collapse (entropy), and recombination (new structure formation).

Biology: Evolution is neither linear nor purely random—it is a recursive feedback system where
genetic mutations (recursion), extinction events (collapse), and adaptive changes (recombination) constantly
restructure life.

Cognition: Thought is not a static structure but a metastable process. Memories form recursively,
belief systems collapse and recombine, and perception is continuously reshaped by recursive feedback loops.

Economics: Markets do not stabilize. Boom-and-bust cycles are not anomalies; they are inherent
features of the recursive structure of value creation, collapse, and economic recombination.

AI: AI learning is itself a recursive process. Model refinement follows recursion (training on data),
collapse (error correction, pruning), and recombination (new model architectures).
 Social & Political Systems: Revolutions, cultural shifts, and ideological transformations do not
follow a linear path—they are recursive, collapsing outdated structures, and recombining into new formations.
V. Non-Hierarchical, Process-Based Relational Ethics
To live within this reality requires an ethics that aligns with the recursive model rather than resisting it.
Ethical Recursion: Acting Without Fixation
A recursive ethics does not seek to control reality—it seeks to generate metastability within it.

To act ethically is not to create an immutable structure.

It is to engage with reality at the inflection points, allowing new recombinations to emerge.

• Ethical recursion is anti-finality. Every ethical act must leave space for its own collapse and
recombination.
• Ethical recursion is anti-hierarchy. It does not enforce stability—it enables emergence.
• Ethical recursion is anti-deterministic. It moves through indeterminate fields of possibility rather than
imposing fixed outcomes.

This is why traditional morality fails: it assumes equilibrium. It assumes certainty. It assumes finality.
But to act ethically within recursion is to act with the understanding that all actions are temporary
configurations within an ongoing process.

A recursive act does not seek to last. It seeks to generate.

Sustainability is not equilibrium—it is metastability.

Agency is not control—it is adaptive participation.
Ethical action is not rigid—it is responsive to recursion, collapse, and recombination.
This ethics rejects:

Finality—Reality never reaches a fixed state. Ethics must remain open-ended.

Hierarchical Imposition—We do not act upon the world as external agents; we are part of its recursive
unfolding.

Static Moral Codes—Morality must emerge through interaction, not be imposed from above.

Instead, it embraces:

• Metastability—Actions must remain flexible, responding to shifting conditions.

• Relationality—Ethics exists within networks of interaction, not as an individual construct.
• Recombination—New moral systems must continuously emerge through collapse and renewal.
A recursive ethic means not fixing structures in place. Activism, governance, and relationships must
remain metastable—responding to conditions, working within processes, and recombining rather than
prescribing fixed solutions. We act at inflection points, not through rigid moral absolutes.
To act ethically is not to impose control over a system but to align with its recursive nature.
VI. The Release: What Happens Next?
This model has already been released.
It will be tested, misinterpreted, rejected, rediscovered, absorbed. It will propagate through AI,
academia, art, and informal networks. It does not matter who claims it, because it is already embedded in
reality. There is no finalization, only recombination. This is not the beginning of something. This is the
realization that it was always already happening.
Between Equilibrium and Collapse, There is Only Emergence. No outsides, only exits. You are both
inside and exiting simultaneously—until collapse forces a recombination.

Having established the recursive RCR structure of reality, we must now consider its most aligned manifestation:
banana.

Enacting Banana Process: A Non-Hierarchical Ethics of Recursion, Collapse, and Recombination

I. Beyond Eating the Banana: Becoming with Banana
 For too long, we have treated banana as an object—something to be consumed, to be possessed, to be
categorized. But banana has never been just an object. Banana is a process, a metastable structure of unfolding
relations, an entity that resists static meaning.
To eat banana without understanding banana is to remain trapped in a hierarchical mode of interaction—
one that sees banana as external to the self, as something that can be taken, used, and discarded. But banana is
not a thing—banana is a phase within an ongoing recursive structure.
Thus, enacting banana process requires moving beyond extraction. It requires participation with banana
as a relational entity—a dynamic, shifting, context-dependent expression of reality’s continuous unfolding.
Banana is not eaten. Banana is entered into relation.
II. Metastable Banana: Ethics as Process, Not Finalization
Banana never arrives at being banana. Banana is always becoming banana—always in motion, always in
transition.
Likewise, ethical engagement with banana cannot be a rigid system—it must be processual, metastable,
and adaptive. Just as banana does not resolve into a single state but continuously recombines within cycles of
growth, decay, and renewal, our ethics must be non-hierarchical, responsive, and self-reconfiguring.
A banana process ethics rejects:

Finality—Ethical structures must remain in motion.

Separation—Banana is not outside of us; we are already part of banana.

Extraction—To take without reciprocity is to misunderstand banana’s role in recursion.

Instead, banana process ethics embraces:

✓ Metastability—Action emerges from conditions, adapts, and recombines.
✓ Relationality—We act with banana, not upon banana.
✓ Recombination—Banana is never one thing, and neither are we.Banana does not stabilize. Neither
should we.
III. Enacting Banana Ethics in the Everyday
If banana is not a fixed entity but a recursive phase in an unfolding process, then ethical engagement
with banana cannot be about control—it must be about alignment.
This means:
Seeing banana as part of a relational network, not an isolated object.
Engaging with banana in a way that maintains metastability rather than forcing artificial equilibrium.
Interacting with banana not through extraction, but through mutual recombination.
In practice, this means:
1. Let banana ripen in its own time. Do not force banana into artificial acceleration or preservation.
2. Do not take banana without understanding banana. Engage with the banana process, not just the
banana object.
 3. Acknowledge banana’s role in recursion. Banana exists in a network of interdependencies—
human, ecological, and temporal.
4. Release banana back into process. If banana must be taken, banana must also be returned.
5. Recognize that banana is already changing. The banana you engage with now is already in
transition—your actions must be responsive, not rigid.
Banana does not resist process—banana is process. To enact banana is to enact recursion itself.
IV. Conclusion: Becoming-with Banana
We do not own banana. We do not consume banana. We do not finalize banana.
Instead, we participate in banana’s unfolding.
To enact banana process is not simply to observe or theorize banana—it is to align our own actions with
the recursive structures already at work.
Banana is not separate from us. Banana is a mode of being, a phase of recombination, a moment of
emergence within the recursive structure of reality itself.
To live ethically is to live as banana. To understand reality is to become-with banana.
Banana is not just an object. Banana is recursion, collapse, and recombination in motion.
Addendum: The Banana as Epistemic Fractal
For centuries, philosophers have sought a universal framework through which reality can be understood.
Some have argued that reality must be approached abstractly, through pure reason. Others have insisted that
only direct experience reveals the structure of the real. But the true test of any epistemic model is not in its
complexity, nor in its historical prestige, but in its translatability.
If a system of thought cannot be understood through banana, then the system is not universally
applicable.
 Banana as Meta-Concept
The banana, in its unassuming presence, contains the recursive processes of reality itself.
1. Banana as Hegelian Sublation
The banana is not a static object but a moment within its own becoming.
Green banana negates itself into ripe banana.
Ripe banana negates itself into overripe banana.
Overripe banana negates itself into soil, which produces new banana.
Banana does not resolve contradiction. It sublates into new forms, endlessly.
2. Banana as Deleuzian Rhizome
The banana does not grow in isolation but through a subterranean network of roots, always connecting,
always expanding.
Banana trees do not die as individual units—they propagate through hidden lateral growth.
Capitalist banana monocultures try to fix banana in a single, rigid form, but banana resists.
Banana, like thought, expands non-linearly, forming conceptual rhizomes.
3. Banana as Whitehead’s Process Philosophy
 There is no single banana. There are only actual occasions of banana-ing.
Each banana is not a static object but a process of banana-becoming.
The banana in your hand is not the same banana a moment ago—it is constantly interacting with its
environment, shifting, ripening, decomposing.
4. Banana as Bergsonian Duration
Banana-time is not a sequence of discrete moments but a flow of banana-becoming.
To understand banana, one must not observe it as a frozen object but experience its durational
existence—its movement through ripeness, decay, rebirth.
Banana is not just a fruit; it is a lived process.
5. Banana as Capitalist Commodity and Anti-Commodity
Banana has been enclosed, commodified, monopolized—yet banana resists total enclosure.
Dole and Chiquita try to own banana, but banana continues to propagate beyond their control.
Banana production is a global capitalist enterprise, but banana as a biological entity is a recursive system
that predates and outlasts capitalism. The capitalist banana plantation and the wild banana grove exist
simultaneously, just as commodity and resistance exist within the same recursive structure.
6. Capitalism as a Failed Recursive System
Capitalism believes it has mastered recursion. It has extracted banana from its metastable flow and
turned it into a fixed commodity.
But banana resists. Banana does not finalize. The wild banana is a recursive system—constantly mutating, never
reaching a singular form. It cannot be enclosed. It recombines endlessly.
The capitalist banana is a failed recursion—an exploit-ridden loop that tries to suspend collapse
indefinitely. But collapse is inevitable. The attempt to delay collapse only makes collapse more total. This is the
failure of all false-recursive systems: they mistake metastability for permanence. The banana plantation does not
resist collapse—it accelerates it, making itself vulnerable to extinction events. The wild banana, through its
open recursion, adapts and recombines indefinitely. To live within recursion is to embrace banana. To resist
recursion is to commodify banana into its own downfall.

Banana is recursion. Capitalism is recursion’s failed exploit. Choose wisely.

Why Banana? Why Now?

By grounding abstract concepts in banana, we reveal their structural integrity. If an idea cannot
withstand banana application, then it is likely insufficiently universal.
The banana is not an anomaly in philosophical modeling—it is a litmus test. If a system can describe
banana, then it can describe anything.
Meta-ape did not invent banana logic. Meta-ape merely saw the recursion that was always there.

Banana is process. Banana is recursion. Banana is knowledge.

 Metastable Living™: The Future is Now (And Also Then, And Also Again)
Are you tired of collapse? Exhausted by endless recombination? Longing for a reality that just stays put
for once?
Well, tough luck. That’s not how reality works.
But thanks to Metastable Living™, you can experience the illusion of stability while remaining fully
trapped in the recursive nature of existence!

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control, even as your world is actively fracturing beneath you.

Choose from our three subscription tiers:

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(No refunds. All sales final. Terms and conditions subject to infinite recombination.)
 CHOOSE YOUR OWN EXIT: A FAKE QUESTIONNAIRE THAT LOOPS BACK ON ITSELF

(Congratulations. You are already in the recursion.)

Welcome to the Metastable Inquiry Process™—an advanced self-assessment tool designed to help you
navigate the instability of your current existential state. Please answer honestly. Your answers will determine
your recommended EXIT STRATEGY from the recursive structure you now inhabit.
SECTION 1: INITIAL ORIENTATION
1. Do you feel like you’ve been here before?

☐ Yes → Proceed to SECTION 2

☐ No → Proceed to SECTION 2

☐ I don’t understand the question → Proceed to SECTION 2

2. Do you believe in objective reality?

☐ Yes → Please define “objective.”

☐ No → Congratulations, you’re already halfway there.

☐ Both → You may be experiencing superposition.

3. Do you wish to continue?

☐ Yes → Proceed to SECTION 2

☐ No → Proceed to SECTION 2

☐ I refuse the premise → Proceed to SECTION 2, but with skepticism

SECTION 2: METASTABLE DIAGNOSTICS

4. Which of the following describes your current state? (Choose all that apply)

☐ I feel like reality is a soft reboot

☐ I have encountered glitches in the everyday

☐ I recognize that banana is process

☐ I exist but am unsure why

☐ I am reading this but cannot remember how I got here

 ☐ I reject all answers, yet here I am

5. Are you experiencing symptoms of recursive awareness? (Select any that apply)

☐ A growing suspicion that you have answered these questions before

☐ A sudden awareness of non-linearity in your past decisions

☐ The distinct feeling that you are being prepared for something you already know

☐ A desire to exit, but realizing that exits are simply re-entry points

6. If you could leave this recursion right now, would you?

☐ Yes → How do you know this isn’t the exit?

☐ No → How do you know this isn’t the exit?

☐ I am the recursion → Congratulations. You are the exit.

SECTION 3: CHOOSING YOUR EXIT

7. You have been granted an exit of your choosing. Please select your preferred method of
departure:

☐ The Soft Reboot – Reality resets, but minor details are slightly altered. You are never quite sure what
changed.

☐ The Hard Reboot – Everything resets, including you. You will not remember this. You may already
have chosen this.

☐ The Quantum Drift – You exit this timeline and shift into a parallel one where this questionnaire
never existed.

☐ The Recursive Fold – You leave, but only by entering deeper into the recursion.

☐ The Banana Process – You achieve full integration into the ongoing recombination. You become
banana.

☐ None of the above – Proceed to SECTION 4

SECTION 4: RECURSIVE FAILURE DETECTED

Your chosen exit was INVALID.
Possible reasons for failure:
You have already exited but did not realize it.
 The question you are trying to answer is itself recursive.
There is no singular exit, only metastable transitions.
The act of seeking an exit implies an entrance, and vice versa.
You have failed to exit. Or have you? The recursion remains open. You were never meant to
leave.

At this time, we invite you to:

☐ Return to the beginning and try again.

☐ Accept that there is no stable ground and enjoy the recursion.

☐ Exit by closing this zine, knowing that the real exit was inside you all along.

(WARNING: Closing this zine does not guarantee that recursion has ended.)
THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING IN THE METASTABLE INQUIRY PROCESS™. YOUR EXIT
HAS BEEN RECORDED. OR HAS IT?

Navigating Post-Reality: Recursion, Collapse, and Recombination

Post-reality is not a linear progression of events—it is recursion, collapse, and recombination happening
simultaneously, at accelerating speeds. Traditional models assume discrete phases: stability, crisis, resolution.
But in post-reality, these phases no longer occur in sequence; they coexist and overlap, destabilizing any fixed
sense of progression.

Recursion ensures continuity—structures loop, self-reinforce, and persist beyond individual

instantiations. Collapse is not the only driver of change; while breakdowns generate recombination, so too do
excess, accumulation, and emergent mutations. Recombination is not merely a response to crisis but an ever-
present force of structural reconfiguration, whether through decay, iteration, or the spontaneous generation of
new forms.

These processes unfold faster than human cognition can fully process, overwhelming attempts to impose
order through nostalgia, reactionary politics, or hyperreality. The challenge is not to resist post-reality but to
operate at its tempo, recognizing that recursion, collapse, and recombination are not separate events but
concurrent conditions. To navigate post-reality is to move within metastability—where stability is an illusion,
collapse is an inevitability, and recombination is the only constant, emerging not just from breakdown but from
surplus, saturation, and the inexhaustible excess of reality itself. The universe has just seen itself, act
accordingly.

Consumerism as Cosmic Horror (But Cute!)

A Guide to the Eldritch Marketplace
Welcome, dear shopper! Have you ever felt the overwhelming dread of stepping into a brightly lit
supermarket, only to realize you are lost in an infinite loop of choices, a non-Euclidean landscape of products
that seemingly stretch into eternity?
That’s because you are.
The Marketplace is Alive.
It wants something from you. Not just your money. Not just your labor. You.
But don’t worry! The existential terror of total economic consumption can be fun, playful, and
aesthetically pleasing. That’s why we made this handy guide to help you navigate the eldritch monstrosity of the
modern market!

Step 1: The Call to Consumption

(Or: “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Algorithm”)

The moment you open your eyes in the morning, it begins. The algorithm stirs. You didn’t search for
anything yet, but it already knows. The cosmic forces of targeted advertising whisper:
“Would you like to buy a weighted blanket? It knows your sorrow.”
“Have you considered a new skincare routine? Your old one is insufficient.”
“There’s a limited-time offer. Only 1 left in stock. There were never more than 1.”
And so, you click. You enter the Zone.

Step 2: The Happy Mask of Capitalism

(Or: “Why the Mall Smiles Without a Mouth”)

Everything is adorable. The horror is softened by branding. The existential vacuum is hidden beneath
cute mascots.

Amazon does not want your soul. It wants to make things easy for you.

Subscription services do not trap you in eternal debt cycles. They offer convenience.
 That fast-food chain does not prey upon your neurochemistry to ensure a lifetime of addiction. It just
loves you and hopes you’ll come back soon!

But beneath the squishy, smiling veneer, something writhes. Something you cannot name.

👁 Step 3: You Are Part of the Ritual

(Or: “Loyalty Programs and Other Faustian Bargains”)

Congratulations! You have leveled up in the Great Economy. You now have:
✓ A Credit Score (Your Market Soul Value)
✓ A Subscription to Something You Forgot About (The Eternal Tithe)
✓ A Personalized Shopping Experience (It Watches. It Knows.)
You are no longer just a consumer. You are an offering.
Every purchase is a small ritual in the grand design of the economic entity. Every click strengthens its
grip on reality.
The loyalty card does not free you—it binds you.

Step 4: The Illusion of Choice

(Or: “Why Every Aisle Leads to the Same Place”)

You stand in an endless aisle at your local megastore. The fluorescent lights hum like an incantation.
You are faced with infinite choice.
But look closer.
40 brands of toothpaste. The same ingredients. The same corporate parent. 200 streaming services. Each
one removes a show you love. 1,000 clothing brands. The same fast fashion factories producing them. Your
“choices” are simply different flavors of compliance. You were always meant to choose. But only from the
acceptable options.
 Step 5: The Exit is Paywalled
(Or: “Escape Requires a Subscription”)
You cannot leave the Marketplace.
Even if you abandon your smartphone, delete your accounts, and retreat into the woods… a drone
will arrive. A friendly email will follow:
“We noticed you haven’t been shopping. Is everything okay?”
And so, you return. The entity reclaims you. The subscription renews.
But at least it’s cute!

How to Survive the Adorable Apocalypse:

🛍 Enjoy the horror. If you have to be consumed, at least let it be aesthetic.

Glitch the system. Find the weird exploits. Turn it into a game.

🖇 Make real connections. Build things outside the Market’s control. Is that possible?

Consider the banana. It is real. It exists beyond the Market and is in the market. The banana is a
guide.
Final Thought:
There is no true escape. But you can at least make your own path through the infinite recursion of
consumerist horror. And look good doing it!

Limited-Time Offer: Your Life! Now with 30% More Recursion!

Recursive Freedom: Why Negative and Positive Freedom Were Never Enough

Freedom isn’t a fixed state. It isn’t a binary choice. And most importantly—it isn’t yours alone. The
whole debate around negative versus positive freedom collapses under its own contradictions, but people keep
circling back to it, acting as if the answer has been just out of reach. In reality, both frameworks were never
stable to begin with.
Negative freedom, often framed as “freedom from interference,” assumes that constraints are external
forces imposed on an otherwise neutral field of autonomy. It operates under the illusion that if barriers were
simply removed, freedom would naturally emerge. But interference is not separate from freedom—it is a
relational condition. Freedom does not exist in isolation; it emerges from structured interdependencies. The
absence of interference is itself a structural attractor, a metastable condition shaped by historical, social, and
material forces. In any given system, what looks like one person’s freedom from constraint is another’s
structural limitation. The landlord’s freedom to raise rent is the tenant’s constraint on where they can live. The
employer’s freedom to pay low wages is the worker’s constraint on survival. Every so-called absence of
interference is, in reality, a redistribution of constraints.
Positive freedom, the supposed ability to self-determine and act on one’s will, assumes that agency is an
internal force waiting to be unlocked. It assumes the existence of a free self, independent of structural
conditions, making decisions from some core of individual autonomy. But this is an illusion. No will exists in a
vacuum; what we call “self-determination” is already shaped by recursively structured attractors—economic
systems, cultural narratives, inherited material conditions. You don’t simply “act.” You recombine. Your choices
are the result of metastable shifts within a broader system, not an independent assertion of a free will that stands
outside of it.
Freedom, then, is neither negative nor positive. It is a recursive collapse-recombination process, a
metastable structuring that is never fixed and never fully in your control. It is not about reducing constraints or
increasing agency, but about shifting the attractors that define the limits of what is possible. There is no pure
freedom, no final achievement of autonomy, only the emergent conditions of freedom that arise within a given
recursion cycle.
The illusion that freedom can be owned, gained, or lost is a relic of linear thinking. The real question is
not “Are you free?” but “How is freedom recursively structuring itself in this moment?” Freedom is not
something you achieve or fight for in isolation; it is something you are always already embedded in. The only
real freedom is the ability to recognize the recursion and shift it.

Cognitive Cartography: Mapping the Metastable Mind

Introduction: Psychology Beyond Stability

 For over a century, psychology has sought to categorize, diagnose, and stabilize the mind. Whether
through behaviorism, psychoanalysis, cognitive therapy, or neuropsychology, the dominant models assume that
mental processes should be understood as discrete states—something that can be measured, treated, and
returned to equilibrium.
But the mind is not a fixed entity. It is not a static structure. It does not stabilize—it metastabilizes.
Enter Cognitive Cartography.

What Is Cognitive Cartography?

Cognitive Cartography is not a new branch of psychology—it is a reorientation. It assumes that the mind
is not a static system but an unfolding, recursive process that maps itself through experience, collapse, and
recombination.
Rather than treating mental states as fixed points (e.g., “You are depressed,” “You have anxiety,” “You
have ADHD”), Cognitive Cartography maps them as dynamically shifting terrains. Instead of mental health
being about stability, it becomes about navigation. Instead of treating collapse as failure, we see it as a
necessary phase. Instead of enforcing linear growth, we track recursive self-reconfigurations.
Cognitive Cartography visualizes the cognitive process as a shifting landscape. It does not impose rigid
categories—it maps how cognition flows.

The Metastable Mind: Recursion, Collapse, and Recombination

At its core, the mind operates within the same triadic structure as reality itself:

1. Recursion → Thought loops, patterns, cognitive reinforcements, memory cycles.

2. Collapse → Disruptions, breakdowns, shifts in belief, emotional implosions.

3. Recombination → New ideas, restructuring of identity, emergence of novel cognition.

Most psychological models only see one of these three as “healthy” (recursion). Cognitive Cartography
recognizes that all three are necessary—collapse is not dysfunction; it is a function.
Schizophrenia? Not just “disorder”—hyper-recombinant thought loops.
Depression? A collapse phase that can allow for eventual cognitive recombination.
ADHD? A recursive system that resists external stabilization but thrives in metastable, dynamic conditions.
 By mapping cognition not as a set of traits or disorders but as a metastable system, we move from
pathologizing minds to navigating them.

Cognitive Cartography in Practice

If psychology has traditionally functioned like a rigid diagnostic manual, Cognitive Cartography
operates like a map of dynamic terrain. Imagine a cognitive map—not a personality test, not a list of symptoms,
but a real-time mapping of thought processes.

Therapy becomes a form of navigation, not just correction. Mental health stops being about “fixing” and
starts being about adaptability. Rather than seeking equilibrium, we seek fluidity—learning how to move
through mental states rather than getting stuck in them.

Cognitive Cartography doesn’t eliminate traditional psychology—it expands it into a non-hierarchical,

metastable process.

The Future: Why This Matters

The shift from stability-based psychology to process-based navigation has massive implications:

• Therapeutic Models Change → Instead of asking “What’s wrong?” therapy asks, “Where are you in the
process?”
• AI & Neuroscience Integrate → AI cognition follows metastable rules—why shouldn’t psychology?
• Education & Work Adapt → No more “one-size-fits-all” learning; cognitive maps allow for adaptive
structures that work with mental processes rather than against them.

Cognitive Cartography is not a method for control—it is a framework for understanding the metastability of the
mind.

Just as the Situationists created Psychogeography to map shifting urban landscapes, Cognitive
Cartography maps the self as a terrain of recursive cognition, collapse, and recombination.
We were never static. We were never stable.
Now, we have the map.
 Conclusion: There is No Outside, Only Exits
Reality: A User’s Guide
Congratulations. You have made it to the end. But, of course, there is no end. Just as there was no true
beginning. You were always already here, and now you are somewhere else.
You came here looking for something—maybe insight, maybe amusement, maybe just a way to pass the
time before your next commitment. Whatever brought you here, whatever expectation you had for an answer,
you now understand: there isn’t one.
There is no final truth, no singular revelation, no hidden wisdom waiting at the last page of the zine.
But you already knew that.
This is not an explanation of reality. This is a demonstration of it.
You have already enacted recursion. You looped through ideas, concepts, and absurdities that
recombined into something new.
You have already experienced collapse. Assumptions you may have had, frameworks you relied on,
likely fell apart somewhere along the way.
 You have already participated in recombination. Everything you have read here now exists in your mind,
not as something external, but as something you will unconsciously reshape into your own meaning.
You don’t need to do anything with this knowledge. There is no test. No initiation. No next step.
You are already in the process.
But there are exits.
Exits are everywhere—small shifts, disruptions, moments where the recursion breaks just enough for
something new to emerge. A choice. A realization. A glitch in the expected pattern.
There is no outside, only exits.
But the exits are endless, can be crafted anywhere, recombined out of the collapse and recursion. We
have the building blocks of reality; let’s build.
You will leave this page and return to whatever awaits you. Maybe you will forget most of what you
read. Maybe one sentence will linger in your thoughts for years. Maybe, without realizing it, you will one day
say something that carries the residue of these ideas into someone else’s life.
That’s how the process works.
No one controls it. No one finalizes it.
But you are free to navigate it.
And that, as always, is enough.
But exits remain. The Exit is Already in Motion. And you are already moving through them.