Development Without Environment presents a structural account of how human development unfolds when the environmental constraints that once shaped attention, identity, and coherence begin to thin or collapse. The paper argues that modern developmental patterns—often labeled as disorders—are better understood as stabilization strategies of a manifold developing without the reciprocal structure it evolved to rely on. Consciousness compensates for missing constraints, holding continuity across states that no longer converge naturally. The result is not dysfunction but adaptation: the manifold narrows, accelerates, anchors, or fragments depending on its curvature and the specific form of environmental thinning it encounters. This framework reframes autism, ADHD, gender dysphoria, and identity instability as structural responses to environmental disintegration rather than intrinsic deficits, offering a unified model of development under modern conditions.
Denis Bailey (Thu,) studied this question.