Reality Drift: Framework Overview and FAQ

This document provides an overview and frequently asked questions for the Reality Drift Framework, a framework for understanding how systems can remain operational and internally coherent while the representations guiding them progressively lose corrective contact with the reality they are meant to track, describe, or govern. The overview explains how drift accumulates through filtering, compression, representation, optimization, recursive reuse, and weakening constraints. It situates the framework’s major concepts within this process, including the Representation Stack, Drift Principle, Semantic Fidelity, Recursive Compression, Optimization Trap, Constraint Collapse, Synthetic Realness, Cognitive Drift, Filter Fatigue, Co-Cognition, Temporal Drift, and the Drifted Self. The FAQ distinguishes Reality Drift from ordinary error, bias, Goodhart’s law, hyperreality, and related concepts. It also provides a practical diagnostic for examining whether representations remain answerable to the real-world conditions, purposes, and consequences they are intended to represent.