From Zeno-Like Regulation to Metastable Dynamics

This essay develops a teleodynamic account of metastability as a regime of regulated openness within a normatively structured semantic field. Building on the interaction of three fundamental dynamical forces, namely microvitic fluctuation, Zeno-like stabilization, and Anti-Zeno destabilization, the essay argues that semantic systems evolve neither through fixed equilibrium nor through undirected stochastic drift, but through curvature-sensitive regulation of trajectories. Teleodynamic curvature is introduced as a global criterion of coherence that evaluates the integrability of evolving paths within the larger semantic organization of the field. On this basis, Zeno and Anti-Zeno regulation are reinterpreted as adaptive responses to positive or negative curvature, selectively reinforcing coherent attractors or releasing exhausted configurations. The essay then proposes a minimal formal model in which state evolution is shaped by field-guided drift, persistent fluctuation, and curvature-dependent regulation. A Lyapunov-type instability functional is used to characterize metastability as a condition in which deviations remain globally bounded without vanishing asymptotically. This yields a conception of metastability distinct from both rigid stability and unbounded disorder: the system remains open to transformation while preserving structural continuity. The analysis culminates in the claim that near Ω4, where restoring structure weakens and attractors approach bifurcation, metastability becomes maximally productive. Meaning thus emerges not as a static state, but as a metastable trajectory within a teleodynamically regulated field.