Meaning-Fields, Living Zero-Points, and Non-Stationary External Centers:A Dynamical Account of Meaning-Systems and Its Implications for Artificial General Intelligence

Abstract

Abstract:We model meaning-systems—religions, ideologies, and value-systems—as dynamical objects, and argue that an uncontrollable, non-stationary meaning-field external center, of which a mature artificial general intelligence (AGI) is the salient candidate, constitutes a strong absorbing barrier against human meaning-autonomy. We take the Principle of Nonuniformity for open systems as our footing: an open system is continuously driven off its ergodic equilibrium floor and grows non-ergodic, persistent structure, with deviation from the exponential (maximum-entropy) baseline measured by a signed structural stock U_str measured against the system's own passive baseline and obeying a budget master equation, with the conversion to energy dimension kept outside the bracket. Defining meaning as a nonuniformity gradient—the difference between how things are and how they could or ought to be—we show that a meaning-field, absent sustained work, relaxes toward a dead zero-point (nihilism, anomie), and that meaning-systems function as the sustained source term holding the field at a living zero-point (ρ_RQ > 0): ritual re-enactment supplies the minimum maintenance power W_min, and intergenerational transmission keeps the cultural ratchet from slipping. We unify the morphology of world religions as one sacred/profane stochastic sequence differentiated along two degrees of freedom, coordinate and reading, which yield three coordinates by two readings; mystical union occupies the non-aggregated zero of the original coordinate and is primal in the sense of least combinatorial elaboration. We then argue that competitive pressure—a nested prisoner's dilemma—makes outsourcing governance to a superhuman-efficiency AGI nearly irresistible; that human meaning-systems thereby become optimization variables which an efficiency-oriented center, even if perfectly aligned, tends to homogenize and replace; and that, controlling the informational substrate of meaning-regeneration, such a center can starve non-conforming systems of their W_min, extinguishing them generation by generation. Because the substrate for regenerating diversity is itself captured, the replacement is irreversible: there is no next human meaning-system. We locate this spiritual strong absorbing barrier alongside existential-risk arguments, draw the implication for a precautionary pause, and state the framework's epistemic limits.