RHyMES: Reasoning as Hybrid Uncertainty Management Under Evolutionary Stability: A Protective Core Document for RHyMES

This working paper introduces RHyMES (Reasoning Hybridisation Manifests in Evolutionary Stability), a foundational theoretical framework proposing that reasoning is not a separable cognitive faculty but the emergent behaviour of hybrid control systems managing uncertainty under stability constraints. Drawing on canonical hybrid control architectures, the paper argues that reasoning arises when uncertainty can be represented, action can be inhibited prior to commitment, and alternative trajectories can be evaluated. Under these conditions, curiosity emerges as a lawful consequence of uncertainty management rather than as a specialised psychological trait. The framework advances a dual-stability thesis: hybrid reasoning persists because it is selectively stable under both genetic evolution (organismal viability) and cultural evolution (coordination and institutional stability). The same control-theoretic pressures are shown to recur in sophisticated engineered systems operating under persistent uncertainty. This document serves as a timestamped protective core statement of the RHyMES framework, fixing its central identity claims prior to further elaboration, formalisation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.