Home / Pathologies / Rigidity / Attractor Dogmatism

Strength can become brittleness without anyone noticing.

Attractor Dogmatism shows up when meaning structures become so stable and monolithic they refuse to move, regardless of incoming information. The correctness or incorrectness of the beliefs themselves is irrelevant; they’re so rigidly held, they won’t process new information either way. This usually manifests as explaining away the evidence, or rejecting it entirely.

It feels like strength from the inside because the system never wavers, never doubts, and never changes course. Over time, apparent strength calcifies into structural brittleness masquerading as resilience.

When societal complexity reaches inflection points, some individuals retreat into increasingly rigid eschatological interpretations. Instead of engaging with the complexity of current events, they focus on signs of an approaching “end” and start disengaging from healthy adaptive responses.

As an example, some spiritual frameworks turn into escape hatches from complexity rather than (as intended) tools for navigating it, exhibiting Attractor Dogmatism.

Math Translation

Two simultaneous conditions define this pathology:

\[A(p,t) > A_{\text{crit}}, \quad \|\nabla V(C)\| \gg \Phi(C)\]

$A(p,t) > A_{\text{crit}}$ — Attractor stability breaks critical threshold. The semantic structure becomes entrenched such that it resists all perturbation, even when adapting to new information would benefit the existing structure.

$|\nabla V(C)| \gg \Phi(C)$ — The constraining force holding the system in its current attractor vastly overwhelms the generative potential that could’ve created new meaning from new information. In effect, this is a psychological autoimmune disorder: the system is so strong it attacks healthy change right along with genuine threats.

When both conditions align, the result is a belief system that feels unshakeable from inside but grows increasingly disconnected from the complexity it’s supposed to navigate. The system enters a temporally-anchored, self-destructive pattern: systematically filtering out mounting new information requiring it to be a better version of itself.

Recognition Patterns

[ Individual ]

Someone who once had a vibrant, dynamic relationship with their beliefs, but now defends a distilled, crystallized version. The worldview becomes increasingly unable to incorporate new experience. They’ve shifted from “this is what I’ve learned so far” to “this is and must be the only truth, period.”

The shift is often invisible from the inside, because their beliefs still feel just as strong and coherent as they did before. But strength unable to align with new information under pressure, is no strength at all. That’s rigidity waiting for the right stress to shatter it completely.

[ Cultural ]

Communities that were once capable of self-reflection and course correction develop an immune response to questioning. What used to be a healthy, base-level skepticism of outside ideas becomes wholesale rejection of anything that doesn’t slot perfectly into their existing frameworks.

These cultures often develop elaborate apologetics: sophisticated systems for explaining away contradictory evidence rather than engaging with it and processing it. The more evidence that challenges the worldview, the more elaborate the explanations become for why that evidence doesn’t count.

Over time, these communities become identifiably disconnected from objective reality.

[ Institutional ]

Organizations whose internal questions transition from, “Are we doing this right?” to, “How do we keep doing this?” are great examples of AD. Procedures become sacraments, original purposes get forgotten. Adaptation becomes impossible because the institution itself is more committed to its form than to its original mission.

Academic disciplines can fall into this pattern too, when defending paradigms long past their useful life.

Case Studies

[ Historical ]

Kodak

They invented the digital camera in 1975, but couldn’t escape the gravitational pull of a business model captured on film. Despite possessing the technology and expertise to become both the Canon and Nikon of today, Kodak refused to cannibalize its own, highly profitable canister operation.

The company systematically filtered out strategic information that would’ve required it to adapt. Not that the information was inaccurate, but acting on it would have demanded evolution into a different kind of company entirely.

A century of expertise went down the drain and became Kodak’s coffin: such a deep commitment to being the world’s best film company, they wouldn’t embrace the very future they invented.

Medieval Scholasticism

The intellectual framework that once revitalized European learning eventually got so elaborate and self-referential, it couldn’t incorporate any new empirical knowledge. Scholars developed increasingly complex epicycles to maintain theoretical coherence instead of just questioning foundational assumptions.

The system wasn’t wrong per se; it had produced genuine insights and actionable knowledge about the universe. But it grew so committed to its own internal consistency, it couldn’t process the complexity of anything new. Once the assumptions were finally questioned, enlightenment was inevitable.

[ Media ]

Succession - Logan Roy

Logan has all the information and resources he needs to adapt a media empire to streaming and digital platforms, but he’s so committed to being “the old school media titan,” he systematically rejects strategies that would’ve better preserved his legacy. His identity becomes more important than his empire’s survival. He’d rather destroy Waystar than evolve it beyond his rigid conception of what a media company should be.

Yellowstone - John Dutton

John possesses extensive knowledge about strategic land management, sustainable ranching, and conservation partnerships that would preserve both his family legacy and Montana ranching culture. His commitment, though, to the historical form of the Yellowstone Ranch prevents him from metabolizing solutions that would actually serve his deeper values of land stewardship and family continuity. He’s so anchored to “the way we’ve always done it” he can’t adapt to serve what he actually cares about in the first place.

The Last of Us - The Fireflies

The organization is rigidly committed to finding a cure through Ellie’s immunity. So much so, they can’t even consider alternative approaches to rebuilding civilization. Their original goal was saving humanity, but they got themselves locked into one inflexible path that might not even be optimal for achieving it. The Fireflies systematically ignore information about community-building, sustainable settlements, and other forms of human flourishing that don’t fit with their narrow medical paradigm.

Home / Pathologies / Rigidity / Attractor Dogmatism