Author: Kelly Driftmier

ABSTRACT

SACCADE is a structural unification model that identifies a single developmental pattern underlying system formation and stabilization across cosmic, planetary, biological, cognitive, and social scales. Although the mechanisms governing these domains differ, their architecture of development is consistent: energy forms fast; stability forms slow.

Across scales, complex systems follow a seven-stage sequence—Signal → Arrival → Context → Constraint → Adaptation → Distribution → Evolution—that organizes how energy is captured, structured, stabilized, and transformed through time.

I position SACCADE as a systems-theoretical model, not a replacement for established physics, biology, or neuroscience. Rather than introducing new particles or forces, SACCADE reorganizes existing empirical knowledge into a shared structural language that reveals cross-scale homologies in how systems build pathways around stabilizing constraints. The model offers a unifying lens for understanding system origins, homeostasis, adaptation, collapse, identity formation, and long-term evolution—demonstrating that the same developmental architecture governs processes from cosmic structure formation to neural learning and social stabilization. Throughout, I use the following shorthand: Signal (ignition), Arrival (entry), Context (conditions), Constraint (structure), Adaptation (reorganization), Distribution (flow), Evolution (transformation).

Figure 1 shows SACCADE’s cross-scale structural architecture using three nested cone models

1. INTRODUCTION

Scientific disciplines traditionally study systems in isolation. Cosmology analyzes early-universe expansion and large-scale structure; geophysics examines planetary differentiation and long-term stabilization; biology investigates energy transfer and adaptation in living systems; neuroscience maps signal propagation and plasticity; and the social sciences describe institutional behavior, norm formation, and historical cycles of collapse. Despite differences in material substrate and scale, these systems exhibit deep and repeatable structural parallels.

I propose that these parallels arise because systems across the universe follow a universal developmental sequence. This sequence governs how stabilizing constraints form, how pathways emerge around them, how flows become regulated, and how systems reorganize when existing structures fail. The same architectural logic describes:

• particle formation and gravitational constraint after the Big Bang
• the layering of Earth’s core, mantle, and crust
• metabolic and neuronal pathway formation
• the emergence and stabilization of consciousness and identity
• the rise, maintenance, and collapse of social institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to formalize the SACCADE model, define its key structural terms, delineate its descriptive, unifying, and hypothetical components, and situate it within the broader lineage of systems theory, complexity science, dissipative structure theory, and network formation models (Bertalanffy, 1968; Holland, 2012; Kauffman, 1993; Kelso, 1995; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Sporns, 2011; West, 2017). Early iterations of the model are given in Driftmier (2025a). By synthesizing well-established empirical findings across cosmology, geophysics, biology, neuroscience, and the social sciences, SACCADE provides a cross-scale model that reveals a single, repeated architecture underlying how systems form, stabilize, adapt, and evolve.

2. COSMOLOGY

Cosmology describes the emergence of particles, atoms, stars, galaxies, and the universe’s large-scale structure. SACCADE does not offer new physical mechanisms; instead, it reorganizes established cosmological results into a universal developmental sequence. By placing early-universe fast processes and slow structure formation within the same architectural model, SACCADE shows how dark matter, dark energy, gravitational wells, and filamentary pathways function as components of a coherent system that stabilizes energy across cosmic time (Carroll, 2010; Hawking, 1988; Penrose, 2004; Planck Collaboration, 2020). This positioning aligns SACCADE with general systems theory, dissipative structures, complexity theory, and network-formation models, while remaining fully compatible with ΛCDM cosmology (Bertalanffy, 1968; Holland, 2012; Kauffman, 1993; Kelso, 1995; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Sporns, 2011; West, 2017). Where ΛCDM supplies quantitative predictions, SACCADE supplies the developmental structure through which those predictions can be interpreted. The structural relationships observed in cosmology mirror those governing planetary differentiation, biological evolution, neural development, cognition and identity, and social stability and collapse; mechanisms differ, but the structural architecture—constraints forming, pathways stabilizing, systems evolving—remains consistent across scales.

2.1. Power Pathways of the Universe

At cosmic scale, “power pathways” are the structures that allow energy to organize, persist, and evolve. Standard ΛCDM cosmology divides the universe into:

Visible (baryonic) matter ~5%

protons, neutrons, electrons form stars, planets, gas, dust—structures

visible via electromagnetic radiation

Dark matter ~27%

non-luminous, interacting primarily via gravity

provides gravitational scaffolding on which galaxies form

Dark energy ~68%

energy associated with the vacuum

drives accelerated expansion

 (Carroll, 2010; Hawking, 1988; Penrose, 2004; Planck Collaboration, 2020)

SACCADE structural mapping:

• Visible matter → local structures
• Dark matter → long-range pathways / scaffolds
• Dark energy → background pressure maintaining system-wide homeostasis during expansion

In this model, cosmological components are not separate mysteries but functional elements of a single architectural system that builds and stabilizes structure at scale.

2.2. SACCADE Applied to the Cosmic Vacuum

Cosmic evolution aligns naturally with the SACCADE sequence:

• Signal — Big Bang: an initial burst of energy initiates expansion.
• Arrival — Energy enters a forming vacuum: space-time stretches and cools.
• Context — Particle formation: temperature and density drop enough for protons, neutrons, electrons, and eventually neutral hydrogen and helium to stabilize.
• Constraint — Emergence of gravitational wells: gravity condenses gas into stars; stars collect into galaxies along dark-matter filaments. These gravitational basins form the first stabilizing centers of the universe.
• Adaptation — Filamentary and galactic structure: matter flows along dark-matter pathways, forming galaxies, clusters, and superclusters.
• Distribution — Accelerated expansion + material cycling: dark energy expands the cosmic scaffold; galaxies redistribute matter via outflows, winds, jets, and mergers.
• Evolution — Long-term reorganization: galaxy mergers, star-formation cycles, morphological change, and cluster evolution reshape the cosmic network.

From a systems perspective, dark matter organizes structure horizontally (across space), while dark energy stabilizes the system vertically (preventing collapse). The combined effect is a cosmic-scale homeostasis of expansion versus gravity.

2.3. Homeostasis and Expansion

A core SACCADE principle is that systems must build internal structures to balance energy flows. Cosmology demonstrates this:

• A universe containing only matter and gravity, without any repulsive large-scale component, could eventually re-collapse depending on its density and curvature.
• Observed accelerated expansion implies an additional large-scale component: dark energy.
• Dark energy functions structurally as a homeostatic pressure keeping the cosmic scaffold open.

This interpretation reinforces—not replaces—thermodynamic laws. Constraints (galaxies, filaments, clusters) create local decreases in entropy that remain fully consistent with the global increase in entropy required by the Second Law. SACCADE provides the developmental language for how these structures emerge and stabilize within an expanding, entropy-increasing universe.

2.4. Black Holes as Localized Constraints (SACCADE Hypothesis)

Many galaxies, including the Milky Way, host supermassive black holes at their centers. In SACCADE, these serve as localized constraints that regulate galactic energy flow. Feedback architecture:

• Inflow: matter accretes into the black hole.
• Outflow: relativistic jets, winds, and radiation redistribute energy into the surrounding medium.

This architecture is analogous to autonomic regulation in biological systems: a stabilizing core that organizes surrounding pathways. This analogy is strictly structural, not mechanistic; SACCADE does not suggest biological processes occur in astrophysical environments. It highlights how different domains build pathways around stabilizing constraints to maintain system-level balance.

Figure 3Accretion disks and relativistic jets show how localized constraints regulate energy flow through inflow/outflow feedback—an astrophysical expression of SACCADE’s Constraint → Distribution pattern.

2.5. Planetary States as Structural Outcomes (Hypothetical Extension)

SACCADE provides a unified model through which existing scientific models can be reinterpreted and extended. From this perspective, planetary systems function within the universe’s ongoing optimization of energy pathways: some planets stabilize into durable, energy-conducting structures, whereas others become evolutionary dead ends—frozen, tidally locked, or ejected—and no longer participate meaningfully in long-term homeostatic organization. This is a SACCADE hypothesis about functional role, not a redefinition of astrophysical planet formation mechanisms. It is a structural interpretation layered on top of standard planet-formation models, not a replacement for them. It extends the system-organization logic into planetary diversity.

2.6. Cosmological Structure as a SACCADE Process

Cosmic evolution offers the clearest demonstration of SACCADE’s core rule: energy forms fast; stability forms slow. Immediately after the Big Bang, matter existed as a high-energy plasma without stable pathways. As expansion continued and temperatures dropped, energy gradients decreased, enabling the first constraints to emerge.

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) contains small density fluctuations—minute temperature variations across the sky known as anisotropies. These anisotropies provide an early example of cross-scale structural mirroring: the same patterns of energy distribution and constraint formation visible in the early universe also emerge in materials science and biological systems. They represent the first measurable appearance of the Constraint phase—the initial stabilizing pattern that seeds all later pathway formation (Planck Collaboration, 2020). As the universe evolved, dark-matter filaments formed a branching scaffold that channeled baryonic matter toward nodes. These pathways exhibit long-range coherence, flow-following-structure dynamics, and recursive branching geometries similar to river networks, neural dendrites, metabolic graphs, and ecological webs. Filaments exemplify a universal principle: pathways form first; systems assemble second. As matter accumulated, stars ignited at convergence points, galaxies aligned along filaments, and clusters and superclusters developed hierarchical structures—corresponding to SACCADE’s Adaptation → Distribution → Evolution phases.

Figure 5 Simulated dark-matter filaments form long-range pathways guiding baryonic matter toward nodes of star and galaxy formation. These branching structures correspond to SACCADE’s Adaptation → Distribution phases.

2.7. Supporting Structures and Relevance

Several established physical models reinforce SACCADE’s structural interpretation:

• Newtonian motion: constraints determine trajectories, producing stable orbits.
• Blackbody radiation: geometric and material constraints regulate energy balance.
• Coulombic and gravitational potentials: inverse-square laws create stable fields and predictable flows.
• Electromagnetic induction: self-sustaining loops mirror pathway-feedback cycles seen at cosmic and biological scales.

These do not prove SACCADE; they demonstrate that constraint–pathway–stabilization relationships already govern diverse physical systems.

2.8 Role of Cosmology Figures

The cosmology images—CMB maps, proto-stellar collapse diagrams, accretion disks and jets, cosmic-web simulations—illustrate SACCADE phases directly:

• Signal → Arrival → Context: Big Bang → inflation → particle formation
• Constraint: CMB anisotropies and gravitational wells
• Adaptation: proto-stellar collapse, filamentary flow
• Distribution: accretion-disk jets, galactic winds
• Evolution: cosmic web expansion, galaxy and cluster evolution

They visually anchor the structural universality SACCADE makes explicit.

2.9 Summary of Cosmology’s Structural Contribution

Cosmology provides the earliest and largest-scale demonstration of SACCADE’s architecture. Where physics supplies mechanisms, SACCADE supplies developmental pattern:

• energy forms fast.
• stability forms slow.
• pathways emerge around constraints.
• systems evolve recursively across scales.

By situating galaxies, planets, life, nervous systems, cognition, and societies within the same structural logic, I present cosmology not as a separate branch of science but as the foundational expression of the universe’s structural learning process.

3. GEOPHYSICS

Geology provides the next scale at which SACCADE’s developmental architecture becomes visible. Once cosmic processes produced a stable star–planet system, Earth’s interior began differentiating into a layered structure capable of holding, channeling, and regulating energy across geological timescales. The planet’s core, mantle, lithosphere, and crust formed through the same sequence of constraint formation and pathway stabilization that governs system development at larger scales. These layers did not arise as static features; they emerged through billions of years of thermal, chemical, and mechanical refinement, producing a coherent planetary pathway system organized around a central constraint. By viewing Earth’s internal structure, tectonic behavior, and long-term evolution through the SACCADE model, geology becomes a record of how stability forms slowly, pathways expand, and systems reorganize in response to changing energetic conditions. This section traces how Earth’s differentiated layers, biological emergence, surface stabilization, and evolutionary history reflect the same structural pattern observed in cosmology—demonstrating SACCADE’s continuity from the formation of the universe to the formation of a living planet.

3.1. Power Pathways of Earth

In SACCADE terms, Earth is a stabilized energy pathway built around a central constraint. The solid inner core functions as that constraint, while the surrounding shells—the outer core, mantle, asthenosphere, lithosphere, and crust—form the pathways that conduct, buffer, and distribute energy across geological timescales. Where SACCADE holds that energy forms fast; stability forms slow, Earth represents the slow-stability phase of a star–planet system: a layered structure that gradually learned to hold, channel, and regulate energy in a coherent, long-term manner. The planet’s internal organization is therefore not incidental; it is the outcome of billions of years of structural refinement (West, 2017).

3.2. SACCADE Applied to Planetary Structure

Earth’s differentiation follows the SACCADE developmental sequence:

• Signal — the initial energy burst of star and planet formation: the collapse of a molecular cloud around a young star.
• Arrival — dense materials settle toward the planetary center as accretion proceeds.
• Context — extreme temperature and pressure gradients determine which materials melt, crystallize, rise, or sink.
• Constraint — a solid inner core of iron–nickel forms under pressures and temperatures comparable to the Sun’s surface, establishing Earth’s central energetic constraint.
• Adaptation — a liquid outer core circulates around the inner core, generating the geomagnetic field—a planetary-scale conduction pathway.
• Distribution — the mantle, asthenosphere, lithosphere, and crust emerge as progressively cooler, mechanochemically distinct layers that distribute heat and mechanical stress.
• Evolution — over billions of years, plate tectonics, ocean basins, and continents reorganize repeatedly as the system adjusts to internal heat loss and external forcing.

Each layer participates in a single, integrated power-pathway system that maintains planetary homeostasis around a stabilizing core.

3.3. Layer-by-Layer Analogy to Biological Pathways

Earth’s layered structure parallels the architecture of a biological body:

Inner core — central constraint

• composition: solid iron–nickel
• function: anchors gravitational and energetic behavior
• biological analogue: autonomic core—non-negotiable, stability-defining

Outer core — conductor

• composition: liquid iron, ~4,000–6,000 °C
• function: generates the magnetic field protecting the surface and guiding charged-particle flow
• biological analogue: blood and neural conduction—iron-rich, circulating, electromagnetic

Lower mantle — deep structural pathway

• composition: dense rock behaving plastically over long timescales
• function: transfers heat and mechanical stress upward
• biological analogue: bones and deep connective tissue—load bearing, form-preserving

Asthenosphere — ductile interface

• composition: partially molten, highly deformable
• function: enables tectonic mobility and large-scale adaptation
• biological analogue: fascia/tendons—flexible interfaces between rigid structures

Lithosphere — rigid shell

• composition: solid upper mantle + crust
• function: plate movement, collision, and subduction
• biological analogue: musculoskeletal system—rigid but dynamically reconfigurable

Crust — surface boundary

• composition: continental and oceanic crust
• function: interface with atmosphere, hydrosphere, and life
• biological analogue: skin—outermost regulatory and exchange surface

Earth is therefore not a static sphere of rock but a dynamic, layered pathway system stabilized around a central constraint—an architecture mirrored in the autonomic and nervous systems of living organisms (Kauffman, 1993; Margulis, 1998).

3.4. Biological life on Earth

Life on Earth emerged directly from planetary gradients. Early Earth contained steep contrasts—heat, light, mineral surfaces, redox chemistry, pressure, and flowing water—which provided the Context enabling energy to stabilize within matter. Life is not an exception to geophysics but a continuation of it: the most stable, energy-regulating configuration available within those gradients.

Primitive metabolic cycles formed rapidly under available gradients, reflecting SACCADE’s Signal → Constraint stage. LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor, represents the first fully stabilized, inheritable biological architecture—a shift into Stability → Distribution → Evolution. From LUCA forward, evolution functions as a cumulative structural-learning process.

Each lineage contributes a solution to planetary energy-regulation challenges: insects → atmospheric throughput and reproduction efficiency; amphibians → transitions between aquatic and terrestrial homeostasis; reptiles → water retention, heat regulation, self-contained embryos; birds → metabolic efficiency and sensory specialization; mammals → high-energy brains, social learning, and parental investment (Kauffman, 1993; Margulis, 1998). These innovations act as planet-level feedback loops, paralleling ecological inheritance, niche construction, and Earth-system stabilization dynamics (Lovelock, 1979; Margulis, 1998).

3.5. Lichen as Early Evidence of Structural Recurrence

One of the clearest examples of structural recurrence at the planetary scale is the emergence of lichen. As some of the earliest organisms capable of colonizing bare rock, lichens formed a stabilizing boundary layer during periods of planetary instability. By buffering surface temperature, trapping moisture, and initiating mineral weathering, lichens created persistent chemical and energetic interfaces between lithosphere and atmosphere.

Functionally, lichen acted as Earth’s earliest version of skin: a membrane-like structure responsible for protection, regulation, and conduction. This architecture later appears in multicellular organisms in the form of skin, plant cuticles, fungal sheaths, and other boundary systems (Margulis, 1998). Lichens therefore provide empirical support for a central SACCADE principle: once a stabilizing architecture emerges, evolution reuses it whenever similar energetic demands arise. The pattern recurs across scales not because of shared ancestry, but because successful solutions are structurally favored and redeployed.

Figure 7 Lichen forms an early planetary “skin”—a stabilizing boundary layer that buffers environmental gradients and initiates surface regulation. This pattern recurs in biological organisms, illustrating cross-scale structural reuse.

3.6. Stasis, Instability, and Structural Reorganization

Many lineages eventually reach stable equilibria and remain in SACCADE’s Constraint → Slow Evolution phase for millions of years. Dragonflies, sharks, crocodiles, horseshoe crabs, and ginkgo trees exemplify stable, energy-efficient designs. Instability, by contrast, drives rapid branching and innovation:

• drying swamps → amphibian bottleneck → amniotic egg.
• Pangaea’s greenhouse climate → burrowing synapsids → mammals; Cretaceous–Paleogene impact → collapse + adaptive radiation.

Speciation rates increase whenever planetary homeostasis is disrupted—volcanic winters, oxygenation events, mass extinctions, hydrological reorganizations, climatic shifts. These events represent high-signal states where new constraints force new adaptations and generate new structural trajectories (Kauffman, 1993; Margulis, 1998).

3.7. Continuity from LUCA to Humans: A SACCADE Recursion

Biological history can be understood as a single, unbroken SACCADE recursion: Energy → Structure → Stability → New Signal → New Structure. LUCA established proton gradients, basic metabolism, and information storage. Eukaryotes introduced compartmentalization. Multicellular organisms create coordinated signaling systems. Vertebrates centralized sensory and energetic control. Mammals developed advanced cognition and social investment. Humans built symbolic learning, language, externalized memory, and cultural evolution. There are no discontinuities—only structural reorganizations following the same energetic rule (Kauffman, 1993; Margulis, 1998).

3.8. Earth as a Planetary Homeostasis System

Earth operates as a long-term homeostatic system. Life collectively stabilizes atmospheric composition, climate and surface temperature, hydrological cycles, and nutrient flows. These dynamics align with scientific Gaia theory (in its non-mystical form), biogeochemical cycling, macro-evolutionary feedback, and Earth-system regulation models (Lovelock, 1979; Margulis, 1998).

From a SACCADE perspective, evolution is the structural learning algorithm through which Earth maintains and extends homeostasis across geological time. The rule holds universally: energy forms structure; structure stabilizes energy; instability forces new structure. Earth’s geological and biological history is therefore a clear, multi-scale demonstration of the SACCADE architecture in action.

4. NEUROSCIENCE AND BIOLOGY

At the biological and neural scales, SACCADE’s architecture becomes visible in the organization of living cells and the networks they build. Neurons, metabolic pathways, tissues, and whole-body systems follow the same developmental sequence seen in cosmology and geophysics: constraints shape flow, pathways stabilize flow, and repeated flow reshapes structure. Biological matter is not passive; it is organized around energetic limits, membrane-defined thresholds, and chemical substrates that determine how information and energy propagate. In the nervous system, this architecture takes its most dynamically adaptive form. A neuron receives signals, transforms them into electrical activity, conducts that activity along an axon, and converts it back into chemical information at synapses—functioning as a local power-pathway unit whose structure updates with use. These processes mirror, at a different scale and with entirely different materials, the same structural roles seen in cosmic and planetary systems. Just as dark matter shapes large-scale energy pathways in cosmology, molecules such as glutamate shape micro-scale pathways in neural circuits; the mechanisms differ completely, yet the structural logic is identical. By situating neural activity, metabolic processes, tissue organization, and whole-organism regulation within SACCADE’s developmental sequence, neuroscience and biology become a record of how living systems build stability, expand pathways, and reorganize themselves around changing energetic conditions. This section traces how neurons, bodies, and sensory architectures embody the SACCADE cycle and how biological and neural systems express the same universal pattern of constraint → pathway → distribution → structural evolution.

At the biological scale, I treat neurons as local power-pathway units. A neuron receives signals, transforms them into electrical activity, conducts that activity along an axon, and converts it back into chemical information at synapses. The cell is not a passive wire—it is an adaptive, constraint-regulated structure that organizes energy flow and learns over time.

In other words, a neuron follows the exact same SACCADE architecture that appears in cosmology and geophysics: constraints shape flow, pathways stabilize flow, and repeated flow reshapes structure. Glutamate, the primary excitatory neurotransmitter, makes this architecture possible. It is simultaneously the molecule that drives neural excitation and a major substrate in metabolism and nitrogen regulation (Kandel et al., 2013). Glutamate is, structurally speaking, a biological pathway enabler—the molecule that allows energy and information to propagate through neural networks.

At a purely functional level, this mirrors the role of dark matter in cosmology: dark matter shapes the large-scale pathways through which galaxies form, while glutamate shapes the micro-scale pathways through which neural activity forms. The physics and chemistry differ completely. The structural role is the same.

4.1. Dark Matter and Glutamate: A Cross-Scale Structural Analogy

When I map SACCADE across scales, I do not claim equivalence of material; I map equivalence of structure. Dark matter creates long-range scaffolds that determine how cosmic energy flows. Glutamate creates excitatory pathways that determine how neural energy flows. Both are pathway-defining substrates: essential not because of what they are, but because of what they allow the system to do. This analogy is structural only, not mechanistic; no shared composition, dynamics, or causal processes are implied beyond their role in pathway formation.

This is why SACCADE works across domains. When a system needs to stabilize flow and build pathways, the architecture repeats—whether the material is iron in a planetary core, glutamate in a synapse, or dark matter shaping a galaxy.

4.2. SACCADE Applied to a Single Neuron

Each neuron expresses the SACCADE cycle internally:

• Signal — a sensory event or internal shift initiates incoming input.
• Arrival — receptor potentials reach the neuron as synaptic currents.
• Context — membrane properties, ion gradients, neuromodulators, and synaptic weights determine how the neuron interprets this input.
• Constraint — ion channels enforce a strict threshold. The neuron fires—or it does not.
• Adaptation — activity changes receptors, synaptic strength, and gene expression. The neuron updates its structure.
• Distribution — action potentials propagate, releasing glutamate to downstream cells.
• Evolution — networks reorganize. Synapses form, prune, and reweight. Circuit architecture evolves.

This is not metaphor. A neuron literally embodies the SACCADE cycle: constraint → pathway → distribution → Evolution (structural learning) (Kandel et al., 2013; Kelso, 1995; Sporns, 2011).

4.3. Cross-Scale Structural Analogy: Pitcher Plants and the Vestibular System

One of the most elegant demonstrations of structural recurrence appears when I compare pitcher plants to the human vestibular system. Pitcher plants evolved curved, resonant surfaces that capture and direct flow—sound, air, moisture, and even organism movement—into a predictable channel. Their shape selects and stabilizes signal through geometry alone.

Human semicircular canals and cochlea do the same thing. They are curved, tuned to direction, resonant, and structured to stabilize flow (of endolymph, vibration, pressure). These systems share no direct evolutionary lineage. Their mechanisms differ, but their geometry is nearly identical because they solve the same energetic problem: how to constrain, amplify, and interpret directional flow. Again, this is a geometric and structural recurrence, not a claim of shared mechanism or a direct evolutionary relationship.

This is the essence of SACCADE’s structural universality: when a system requires stability around flow, the same architecture emerges, regardless of domain.

Figure 8 Pitcher plant acoustic surfaces and vertebrate semicircular canals share convergent flow-stabilizing geometries. The similarity reflects structural equivalence—not shared mechanism—demonstrating SACCADE’s cross-domain recurrence rule.

4.4. The Human Body as a SACCADE System (Root & Source Theory)

The entire human organism expresses SACCADE recursively. The autonomic nervous system is the core constraint. Circulatory, respiratory, and neural networks form pathways. Hormonal tuning, immune learning, and plasticity form the adaptation layer. Behavior and cognition handle distribution. Identity and long-term change reflect evolution.

In Root & Source Theory (Driftmier, 2025b), Root energy is the body’s biological infrastructure—membranes, ion gradients, metabolic pathways. Source energy is the organized electrical-chemical activity that becomes conscious experience. A body must maintain stable energetic constraints to hold consciousness. If constraint fails—metabolism collapses, ion gradients destabilize, autonomic function drops—consciousness degrades or fragments.

This is the same rule that governs galaxies, planets, ecosystems, and social systems: only energy can hold energy; only stable constraint can organize it.

5. PSYCHOLOGY & COGNITIVE SCIENCE

Psychology represents SACCADE expressed at the scale of cognition, internal experience, and behavior. Where cosmology organizes matter, and neurology organizes energy flow through biological pathways, psychology organizes meaning, interpretation, and identity within a neural system shaped by past experience. The mind follows the same developmental sequence: insights emerge rapidly as Signal events; interpretation places them within existing memory, emotion, and expectation; core beliefs act as Constraints that determine which signals can activate and which are suppressed. As pathways update through repeated experience, integration unfolds as slow Adaptation, reshaping emotional responses and behavioral patterns. Thoughts, decisions, and interpersonal actions function as Distribution, carrying internal states outward into speech, relationships, and long-term choices. Over time, personality, worldview, and identity reorganize through Evolution—cumulative structural change driven by new constraints and new pathways. Trauma fits this architecture precisely: a sudden destabilizing event that imposes a rigid constraint the system must navigate, followed by long-term pathway rebuilding as healing progresses. Psychology therefore sits naturally within SACCADE: it is the cognitive-scale expression of the same structural cycle that governs galaxies, planets, ecosystems, bodies, and neurons.

Trauma acts like a sudden destabilizing event—a meteor impact or tectonic rupture. It forces a rigid constraint into the system that future behavior must navigate. Healing corresponds to long-term pathway rebuilding. Psychology therefore fits naturally inside SACCADE: it is the cognitive-scale version of the same structural cycle that shapes galaxies, planets, ecosystems, and neurons (Kandel et al., 2013; Kelso, 1995).

The same structural sequence that governs an individual mind also governs collective behavior. Core beliefs form constraints at the personal scale just as shared beliefs form constraints at the societal scale; neural pathways that stabilize thought parallel the social pathways—norms, institutions, technologies—that stabilize collective action. High-Signal events reorganize both systems: trauma or insight in a psyche, and shocks such as economic crises or political upheavals in a society. Stability in both domains depends on the match between constraints and reality; collapse occurs when that match fails. In SACCADE, psychology naturally extends into the social sciences because the dynamics of minds scale directly into the dynamics of groups.

6. SOCIAL SCIENCES

At the societal scale, SACCADE’s architecture appears in the organization of human groups, institutions, and collective behavior. Human societies function like large-scale neural and planetary systems: fast shocks act as Signal events that initiate rapid Arrival of new pressures into the social system; these pressures interact with existing historical, cultural, and economic Context. The system responds by forming or modifying Constraints—laws, norms, political structures, and institutional boundaries.

Economic crashes, pandemics, technological shifts, and revolutions rapidly reorganize constraints, producing immediate structural redirections of social energy. Over longer periods, societies undergo Adaptation: they renegotiate meanings, practices, and structures to accommodate new realities. As these adaptations stabilize, they become Distribution pathways—laws, customs, infrastructures, and shared memory that channel information, regulate behavior, and maintain coherence across the group.

Collapse follows the same sequence observed in all complex systems: the core constraint—norms, moral systems, political structures—ceases to match internal needs or external conditions; pathways freeze; adaptation fails; and the system undergoes Evolution, reorganizing around new constraints. Societies update through the same cycle as neurons, planets, and ecosystems: high-Signal shocks introduce new conditions, constraints shift, adaptive processes reshape pathways, and new norms emerge as long-term social evolution.

In this sense, the social sciences fit naturally within SACCADE, revealing human history as another expression of the same structural architecture that governs cosmology, geophysics, biology, and cognition (Bertalanffy, 1968; Holland, 2012; Kauffman, 1993; Kelso, 1995; Sporns, 2011; West, 2017).

Every collapse in human history follows the SACCADE pattern: the core constraint (norms, moral systems, political structures) stops matching environmental or social reality; pathways freeze; adaptation fails; the system reorganizes. This is the same dynamic that occurs when a neuron cannot reach threshold, a planet loses magnetic shielding, or a galaxy loses structural coherence.

Societies update in the same way nervous systems do: high-Signal shocks introduce new constraints, long cycles of adjustment stabilize pathways, and the emergence of new norms constitutes social evolution. SACCADE therefore unifies human history with systems biology, cognition, and cosmology under one structural architecture (Bertalanffy, 1968; Holland, 2012; Kauffman, 1993; Kelso, 1995; Sporns, 2011; West, 2017).

The recurrence of SACCADE’s sequence in social organization highlights the necessity of a unifying structural model—one that can account for stability, collapse, and reorganization across every scale of system. SACCADE occupies this role within the broader landscape of systems theory.

7. POSITIONING WITHIN SYSTEMS THEORY

SACCADE is not a physical theory; it is a structural unification model that identifies a developmental sequence underlying how systems stabilize and transform energy across scales. Its role is analogous to general systems theory, complexity and dynamical-systems frameworks, cybernetics, network theory, and scaling laws, but its contribution is distinct (Bertalanffy, 1968; Holland, 2012; Kauffman, 1993; Kelso, 1995; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984; Sporns, 2011; West, 2017).

Most existing systems theories describe feedback (cybernetics), self-organization (complexity science), emergence of attractors (dynamical systems), network topology (graph theory), or scaling relationships (metabolic and urban scaling laws). None provide a universal developmental sequence or a structural ontology applicable from cosmology to cognition.

SACCADE fills that gap. It proposes that every stabilizing system follows the same architecture: Signal → Arrival → Context → Constraint → Adaptation → Distribution → Evolution. This sequence is not symbolic; it is a direct mapping of how real systems structure energy through time. What SACCADE adds to the landscape of systems theory is a developmental lifecycle, a constraint-centered ontology, and a cross-scale equivalence framework. Where earlier theories describe what systems do, SACCADE describes how they are built.

8. BOUNDARIES OF APPLICABILITY

SACCADE does not replace physics, biology, neuroscience, psychology, or social science. It does not introduce new particles, forces, biochemical pathways, or cognitive mechanisms. Instead, SACCADE reorganizes known empirical facts into a shared structural language, reveals formal homologies between systems that otherwise appear unrelated, and provides a developmental template to interpret formation, stabilization, adaptation, and collapse.

The model applies only to systems that capture, constrain, and redistribute energy; systems that build pathways around stable centers; and systems capable of structural adaptation over time. It does not apply to systems without internal energy regulation (e.g., simple physical collisions) or systems with no feedback capacity (purely inert forms without gradients or flows).

SACCADE is therefore a unification model, not a replacement for discipline-specific mechanisms.

9. DESCRIPTIVE VS. UNIFYING VS. HYPOTHETICAL ELEMENTS

To prevent category errors, SACCADE distinguishes its components clearly.

Descriptive elements (empirically established):

• particle formation and cosmic structure formation,
• Earth’s layered interior and tectonic dynamics,
• neuronal signaling, synaptic transmission, and plasticity,
• psychological processes such as insight, integration, and trauma response,
• social norm formation, institutional stabilization, and collapse cycles.

These describe known phenomena through the SACCADE lens.

Unifying elements (structural reorganization of existing facts):

• constraint → pathway → stabilization as a universal developmental architecture,
• fast formation vs. slow stabilization as a cross-domain rule,
• correspondence between cosmic-scale pathways (filaments), geophysical pathways (mantle convection), neural pathways (axons), and social pathways (institutions)
• structural parallels in flow-regulating geometries (e.g., pitcher plant → vestibular system). These are not new mechanisms; they are re-expressions of known mechanisms into a single architecture.

Hypothetical elements (theoretical extensions):

• universal applicability of the SACCADE cycle,
• deep structural homologies across cosmic, biological, psychological, and social systems,
• recurrence of stabilizing geometries across evolution (evolutionary learning),
• predictive use of SACCADE for cross-domain reasoning and problem-solving.

These hypotheses are falsifiable: they make predictions about where structure should repeat, and they can be tested against new empirical discoveries.

10. CROSS-SCALE APPLICATIONS

SACCADE demonstrates how structurally similar architectures appear across scales.

Cosmic scale

• Constraint: Gravitational wells; dark-matter concentration nodes
• Pathways: Dark-matter filaments directing baryonic flow
• Stabilization: Star formation, cluster binding, feedback regulation

Planetary scale

• Constraint: Solid inner core
• Pathways: Outer-core convection and mantle circulation
• Stabilization: Tectonics, magnetic shielding, long-term climate moderation

Biological scale

• Constraint: Resting membrane potential and ion-channel thresholds
• Pathways: Axons, dendrites, metabolic cycles, vascular networks
• Stabilization: Homeostasis and adaptive plasticity

Psychological scale

• Constraint: Core beliefs, identity structures, trauma imprints
• Pathways: Behavioral patterns, interpretations, emotional regulation networks
• Stabilization: Integration, long-term cognitive reorganization

Social scale

• Constraint: Laws, norms, institutional structures
• Pathways: Communication networks, economic flows, culture
• Stabilization: Collective behavior, governance, equilibrium cycles

Across all of these domains, SACCADE identifies one structural rule: systems stabilize energy by building pathways around constraints, and they evolve when constraints or pathways cease to match reality.

11. CROSS-DOMAIN REASONING THROUGH STRUCTURAL EQUIVALENCE

SACCADE is not only a descriptive model; it is a method for cross-domain reasoning. When systems share the same structural architecture, solutions in one domain can illuminate problems in another.

The pitcher plant (Nepenthes hemsleyana) uses a curved chamber to shape ultrasonic wave reflections. This is functionally analogous to the vertebrate vestibular and cochlear systems, which use curved, fluid-filled ducts to shape mechanical waves for balance and hearing. These similarities arise not from shared ancestry, but from shared energetic requirements: to guide, filter, and interpret wave information through geometry. SACCADE formalizes this equivalence.

Because both systems follow the same developmental logic (constraint → pathway → stabilization → interpretation), researchers can:

• map biological insight across domains—using pitcher-plant acoustic geometry to reason about vestibular dysfunction, sensory loss, or artificial sensor design.
• map sensory-system insight back to plant systems—using vestibular mechanics to understand how plants manipulate signal environments for ecological advantage; and
• work bidirectionally through the SACCADE cycle—starting from a signal and moving forward through the sequence or identifying a constraint and reasoning backward to its origin.

This bidirectional reasoning identifies missing constraints, hidden pathways, unstable equilibria, unexplored questions, and overlooked structural solutions. The methodological contribution is simple: SACCADE gives researchers a formal, reproducible way to translate insights across domains by anchoring them in structural equivalence, not metaphor.

12. CONCLUSION

Systems across the universe follow the same architectural logic: energy forms fast; stability forms slow. The SACCADE cycle —Signal → Arrival → Context → Constraint → Adaptation → Distribution → Evolution—describes how systems capture energy, build structure around stabilizing constraints, develop pathways to distribute that energy, and evolve when existing structures no longer match environmental demands.

From dark-matter filaments to mantle convection, from neuronal thresholds to psychological integration, from social norms to civilizational collapse, the same structural pattern recurs. SACCADE does not replace physical or biological theory; it reorganizes these fields into a single structural language that highlights the continuity of system formation across scales.

In this view, evolution becomes a structural learning process, cognition becomes a constraint-regulated energy system, and social behavior becomes a macro-scale form of pathway stabilization. Cosmology, geology, biology, neuroscience, psychology, and sociology all express the same underlying developmental architecture. SACCADE offers researchers a unifying lens, a developmental ontology, and a cross-domain reasoning method that reveals where structural solutions will repeat and where systems are most likely to adapt, stabilize, or collapse. It is a model not only for understanding the universe but for understanding how systems learn, persist, and transform across time.

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