Drift Principle

Part of the Reality Drift framework (2023–2026) by A. Jacobs.

Canonical Definition

The Drift Principle describes how meaning and alignment degrade when environmental complexity grows faster than a system’s capacity to compress and stabilize information.

All symbolic systems — minds, institutions, technologies, and cultures — must compress complex environments into simplified representations in order to function. When environmental entropy exceeds compression capacity, representations begin to lose fidelity and drift emerges.

Core Relation

Drift = Entropy / Compression

Relationship to Reality Drift

The Drift Principle describes the core mechanism behind Reality Drift and related phenomena such as Filter Fatigue, Synthetic Realness, and Optimization Trap.

Main Framework Repository

Full framework library:

Reality Drift Library on GitHub