Systemic Tension (R) and the Dynamics of Coherence A Heuristic Framework for Consciousness
Open MIND June 11, 2026 Paweł Krzysztof Chomiuk
This paper proposes a heuristic conceptual model integrating consciousness, intelligence, emotion, hope, free will, empathy, religion, culture, and social development, centered on the concepts of systemic tension and coherence. It assumes every biological, psychological, or social system calibrates its actual trajectory against a natural trajectory of maximal available coherence; the deviation, denoted R, is interpreted as systemic tension. The framework argues that systems respond to R through qualitatively different regulatory strategies, distinguished by scope (local or system-wide) and the quality of correspondence between internal representation and actual state. Consciousness is treated as trajectory calibration, emotions as calibration signals, and free will as capacity to accept local cost among competing trajectories. The work provides analysis tools, an empirical protocol, and failure conditions but is not an empirically verified theory.