2 The Spiral Without End

Picture a system in which feedback only amplifies. Each signal redoubles, each fluctuation grows. The smallest tremor becomes an avalanche. There is no counterweight, no dampening, no pause.

At first, the escalation seems creative: new forms, new intensities, a thrilling cascade. But soon the system devours itself. The runaway spiral does not stabilise into coherence; it collapses under the weight of its own unchecked amplification.

Here, emergence loses its anchor. Instead of weaving persistence, it burns through every thread. What remains is not coherence but collapse — not a storm with a calm centre, but a fire that consumes its own fuel.

What this reveals:

Feedback without balance cannot sustain meaning. It accelerates beyond construal, until the very possibility of coherence dissolves. To endure, systems must construe both the new and the lasting — both the spark and the scaffold.