Meta-Capacity Dynamics: Developmental Bifurcation and Structural Transformation in Hierarchical Inference

Adaptive hierarchical systems are shaped not only by how they redistribute finite inferentialresources, but also by whether the structural conditions of such redistribution can themselveschange across long horizons. Earlier work in this theoretical sequence clarified four core fea-tures of bounded hierarchical inference: constrained precision allocation under finite capacity,redistribution-driven structural instability, near-critical regulation by meta-precision, and theplasticity of operative capacity ceilings. Yet these advances leave unresolved a deeper problem:under what conditions does the admissible structure of bounded inference itself become capableof expansion, contraction, recovery, or qualitative reorganization?This paper introduces meta-capacity dynamics as a higher-order structural level governingthe transformability of hierarchical inference under finite resources. Meta-capacity is distin-guished from both capacity state and meta-precision: capacity specifies the current operativeenvelope of allocable precision, meta-precision regulates responsiveness within a given inferentialgeometry, and meta-capacity governs whether that geometry itself can become developmentallyreconfigurable. On this basis, the paper develops the concept of developmental bifurcation, inwhich threshold changes in meta-capacity induce qualitative shifts in the admissible geometry,spectral organization, and recoverability structure of redistribution. Expansion, contraction,hysteretic recovery, and reorganizational transformation are thereby modeled as distinct regimetrajectories in meta-capacity space.These regime shifts are further interpreted in holonic terms, as changes in the viable rangeof part-whole coordination across inferential levels. This yields a unified five-level architectureof adaptive organization: state inference, precision redistribution, meta-precision regulation,capacity plasticity, and meta-capacity dynamics. The resulting framework extends boundedhierarchical inference from a theory of constrained redistribution to a theory in which structuraltransformability becomes an endogenous feature of development, overload, trauma, recovery,and transformation.