Coherence Cycle – Universal Systems Framework

The project investigates why so many different systems in nature, history, and society follow the same pattern of rise, stability, decline, collapse, and renewal. It introduces the Coherence Cycle, a general framework that treats coherence as the key variable shaping how systems evolve over time. Coherence reflects how well the parts of a system fit together and support one another. When coherence is high, systems are resilient and efficient; when it falls, systems become fragile and vulnerable to collapse. The project develops a mathematical model that describes how coherence grows, declines under stress, crosses a tipping point, collapses into a simplified state, and then recovers through renewal. The model is designed to apply across domains, from ecosystems and civilisations to deep‑time evolutionary transitions. It generates testable predictions, including early‑warning signals before collapse and characteristic recovery patterns after a reset. The aim of the project is to provide a unified, falsifiable framework that can support interdisciplinary research. It offers a way to compare patterns across fields that rarely interact and encourages new approaches to understanding how complex systems change over time.