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Executive Summary
This white paper addresses a growing paradox of modern civilization: despite increasingly sophisticated analytical tools, societies continue to make decisions that predictably undermine public health, ecological stability, and social resilience.
The paper’s core diagnosis is that dominant models of rational choice — especially game theory — are life-blind by construction. They assume self-maximizing agents, fixed preferences, and payoff optimization within given rules, while excluding from consideration the life-support conditions that make rational agency possible in the first place. Universal life necessities, commons, prevention, and long-term viability are treated as externalities rather than governing constraints.
As a result, these models cannot recognize when “rational” strategies cumulatively destroy the conditions of life. Collapse appears as an external shock rather than a predictable outcome. This structural blindness explains repeated failures in pandemic preparedness, climate mitigation, financial stability, and environmental protection.
To address this, the paper introduces an alternative grounding for rationality based on Life-Value Onto-Axiology, developed by John McMurtry. Within this framework:
- Value is defined as that which enables a more coherently inclusive range of thought, felt being, and action.
- Universal life necessities function as non-negotiable constraints, not tradeable preferences.
- Rational action is redefined as that which preserves and expands future life-range.
- Equilibrium is replaced by viability as the primary criterion of success.
This upgraded rationality does not reject strategic reasoning or markets. It re-anchors them within the conditions required for life to persist across generations.
The paper situates this framework across the COVID → climate → AI continuum, arguing that as decision systems become faster, more automated, and more abstract, the cost of life-blind rationality grows exponentially. Without explicit life-coherent constraints, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence risk accelerating civilizational failure rather than preventing it.
The conclusion is clear and operational:
Rationality must now be constrained by life viability if it is to remain rational at all.
Rationality After Collapse: Life-Value Coherent Framework Comparison
Scroll horizontally to see other columns| Decision Framework Type | Primary Axioms | Success Criterion | View of Life Necessities | Time Horizon | Outcome Evaluation | Role of Prevention | Core Failure Mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life-Value Coherent Framework | Primary Axiom of Value: enabling coherent range of thought, felt being, and action; life necessities as non-negotiable constraints. | Viability (Persistence of life capacity) | Universal life necessities as non-negotiable boundary conditions; dynamic stocks of life capital. | Long-term / Multi-generational | Expansion of life-range; impact on shared life-support infrastructures; future availability of choice space. | Rational (requirement for system survival and protecting life-support capacity). | Incoherent with life (if it fails to protect the ground of its own action). |
| Standard Game Theory / Rational Choice | Self-maximization of preference satisfaction; stable preferences; payoff maximization within fixed rules; external conditions as background constants. | Equilibrium (Nash equilibrium) | Externalities; commodities; tradeable preferences; invisible unless impacting individual payoffs. | Short-term relative to life-system regeneration | Scalar measure of private gain; stability of strategy profiles; indifferent to time/regeneration. | Irrational (produces diffuse/delayed benefits with no clear private winner). | Successful Suicide Equilibria (long-term collapse where no individual has incentive to change strategy). |
