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P5.2 - The Physics of Morality
Premise: Moral realism becomes defensible if “good” and “evil” correspond to measurable coherence dynamics.
One-sentence version
If coherence is real (order vs fragmentation), then “good” can be framed as integration and “evil” as degradation of integration.
The Paper (Narrative)
Most worldview debates about morality get stuck because people argue at the wrong layer.
- One side argues from feeling.
- One side argues from social consensus.
- One side argues from divine command.
The project tries a different move:
Instead of starting with rules, start with structure.
1) Coherence is already a value in every system
Every functioning system prefers coherence.
- A body fights infection.
- A mind resists psychosis.
- A society defends trust.
Not because “coherence is nice” but because incoherence destroys the system.
So the framework proposes a bridge:
- If coherence is the deep metric of “holding together,” then moral language is not floating free.
- Morality describes what increases or decreases coherence in agents and communities.
2) Why this supports moral realism
Moral realism does not mean “everyone agrees.” It means that moral claims can be true or false independent of preferences.
If fragmentation reliably destroys systems, then certain actions are not “bad” because someone dislikes them - they are bad because they are anti-coherence.
That is the core of the coherence-morality identity move.
3) Why this matters for the chain
Once morality is tied to coherence dynamics, the question of salvation is no longer merely legal (“guilty/innocent”) or merely psychological (“feel better”). It becomes dynamical.
- what is the trajectory of a soul,
- what are the attractors,
- and what kind of intervention can redirect the trajectory.
What This Paper Is Not Claiming
- It is not reducing morality to physics as a crude category error.
- It is not claiming we can measure moral coherence perfectly today.
- It is claiming that morality has a structural anchor (integration vs fragmentation) rather than being pure taste.