This paper proposes a systems-theoretic account of self-stability. Its central claim is the following: the self is not a self-sufficient structure that can be sustained independently by internal coherence, but an open system whose long-term stability requires continuous exchange with the external environment; when, over the long term, the self-system's objective function and meaning-generation fold inward into self-reference, the system becomes structurally equivalent to a closed system whose exchange channels have been compressed, and will inevitably undergo an accumulation of structural disorder—what this paper terms quasi-entropic dissipation. Within this framework, altruism is detached from its standing as an ethical proposition and redefined as a systems-level functional mechanism: the outputting of value that reality can take up, thereby obtaining feedback and structural calibration. This permits the formalization of a compact thesis—minimal altruism is a necessary condition for the long-term stability of self-structure. The paper is restricted to a foundational-architectural proposal; it does not engage with specific psychopathological diagnoses, nor does it constitute a theory of moral norms.
Echo Liu (Wed,) studied this question.