Reflexive-Reconstitutive Dynamics: Metacognition, Distorted Reality, and the Self-Correction of Viable Existence
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: This paper develops a reflexive revision of Yang Jihoon Dynamics by introducing a recursive metacognitive gate into the theory of reality, intention, and viable existence. Earlier formulations of Yang Jihoon Dynamics described reality as emerging through the interaction of resonance, informational asymmetry, and intention: a finite system encounters a world it cannot fully preserve, transforms asymmetric information through intentional orientation, and thereby opens a field of viable response. The present work argues that this formulation requires a further reflexive layer. Intention cannot be treated as a transparent or primitive variable, because the self that intends may itself be constituted through selective, affectively colored, and narratively organized interpretation. A system may therefore possess intentions that appear sincere while functioning as distortively stabilized orientations generated by an unexamined self-structure. In such cases, intention does not open reality but may instead stabilize illusion. To address this problem, the paper introduces the concept of a recursive metacognitive gate, expressed as Mᵣ(t). The revised formula is: Reality = Mᵣ(t)[R × ΔIᵥ × I]* Here, R denotes resonance with the world’s resistance and correction; ΔIᵥ denotes viable informational asymmetry; I* denotes reflexively aligned intention; and Mᵣ(t) denotes the system’s capacity to include even its own metacognitive claims within the field of possible correction. The central claim is that reality is neither simply given nor merely constructed. Rather, reality is achieved through the ongoing self-correction of finite systems that remain answerable to the world while recognizing that their own cognition, intention, and metacognition may themselves be distorted. This framework distinguishes between reality-mode and illusion-mode: the same structural variables may either preserve viable response capacity or stabilize interpretive foreclosure, depending on whether recursive self-correction remains active. The paper also distinguishes a weak and strong sense of distorted reality. The weak sense holds that individual and collective realities can be partially distorted while remaining corrigible through resonance, resistance, and reconstitution. The strong sense, if taken as a total metaphysical thesis, becomes self-undermining; however, it remains valuable as a reflexive limit condition, reminding us that no subject, theory, or society can claim final immunity from distortion. The result is a theory of reflexive-reconstitutive existence. To exist is not merely to persist, nor merely to intend, but to remain reconstitutable under correction—including the correction of one’s own way of interpreting, intending, and knowing. Reality, on this account, is the self-correcting reconstitution of viable response under finite conditions. Keywords Yang Jihoon Dynamics; reflexive metacognition; reconstitutive dynamics; reality; distortion; intention; informational asymmetry; resonance; viability; self-correction; illusion; philosophy of mind; ontology; epistemology
Author: Yang, Jihoon
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7166103602