Fragmentation of Reality and the Collapse of the Factual Framework: Shared Factual Ground and the Conditions of Possibility for Order (ENG)

ABSTRACT This essay examines the structural conditions under which public deliberation ceases to function and social coexistence begins to degrade. Starting from a concrete empirical episode, it identifies recurring patterns in collective systems that organize their internal coherence around identity and narrative rather than around shared factual constraints. The analysis describes how disruptive information is not processed but eliminated when a common framework for fact validation is absent, and how this dynamic is systematically accelerated by AI-mediated environments optimized for affinity rather than accuracy. Particular attention is given to the structural role of shared factual ground as a coordination device: not a moral pact or cultural agreement, but a minimal cognitive infrastructure that makes disagreement possible without rendering it irreducible. The essay examines how its absence affects institutions, law, and the viability of the nation as a coordination system. It maps three plausible trajectories — permanent cognitive fragmentation, authoritarian imposition of a single framework, and progressive institutional collapse — and discusses possible interventions along with their inherent trade-offs and second-order costs. The text does not offer normative prescriptions or interpret the motivations of specific actors. Its objective is diagnostic: to delimit the minimal conditions that make coordination possible among actors who do not share values, trust, or narratives, but depend on a common reality in order to operate.