2026/02/23 by Bernd von Mallinckrodt · 1 voice
paper · doi:10.5281/zenodo.18743364
openalex publication_date 2026/02/23 · openalex created_date 2026/02/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
This whitepaper introduces the Mallinckrodt Cycle and the Ontology of Oscillation as a meta-cybernetic diagnostic framework for analyzing stability, fragility, and collapse dynamics in complex adaptive systems (CAS). The central thesis challenges the conventional assumption that systems primarily fail due to chaos or insufficient order. Instead, the framework argues that systemic collapse often results from singularization—a pathological compression of variance combined with efficiency extremization. When exploration (variance generation) is structurally suppressed in favor of exploitation (efficiency optimization), feedback integrity erodes, adaptive capacity declines, and systems become vulnerable to external shocks. At the core of the model lies: The Mallinckrodt Cycle: A phase-oriented structural model describing oscillatory movement between exploration and exploitation across a system’s life cycle. The Ontology of Oscillation: An axiomatic foundation conceptualizing social reality as resonance processes within feedback-coupled networks. The Diagnostic Cascade (Yellow–Orange–Red): Yellow: Semantic inbreeding (information narrowing) Orange: Responsibility decoupling (feedback disruption) Red: Resonance muting (total singularization) The framework introduces the principle of Strategic Reserve as an intervention logic: maintaining cognitive diversity, protected experimentation spaces, and selective resonance opening to preserve long-term adaptability. Importantly, the model strictly separates diagnosis (analytical framework) from policy (normative decision-making). It is designed as an ideologically neutral structural instrument applicable to organizations, institutions, markets, and societal systems. This document represents Version 3.1 (Zenodo Full Edition) and formalizes the theoretical architecture of the Mallinckrodt Cycle within a broader meta-theory of singularization.