Explorations of the ORI-C framework by Didier Daloze, applied to the psyche, to climate, to systems of control and to the viability of living systems.
What our position allows us to see, and what it prevents us from perceiving
We live with the impression of gaining direct access to the world around us. We see a colour, hear a voice, recognise a face, assess a situation and quickly draw conclusions from what our senses transmit. This experience seems immediate. It nevertheless rests on a succession of selections.
Read the full article →IQ measures cognitive performance, not intelligence as a whole
The intelligence quotient is often presented as a measure of intelligence. This formulation seems simple, almost obvious, yet it rests on a difficulty situated upstream of the test itself. Measuring intelligence as a whole first presupposes a sufficient definition of the phenomenon to which that word refers. That definition remains…
Read the full article →We often speak of intelligence starting from its most visible manifestations.
We often speak of intelligence starting from its most visible manifestations: reasoning, solving a problem, memorising, understanding quickly, handling language or constructing a demonstration. These capacities are part of it, but they do not cover the whole phenomenon. An experienced musician can adjust their gesture before having…
Read the full article →When every decision can be rational and their sum no longer is
Each ministry, administration or level of government acts within a defined perimeter, with its own objectives, constraints and indicators. A decision can be rational at that scale and produce, when it interacts with other policies, consequences that no one would have chosen as a whole.
Read the full article →Seeing differently what we already knew
An awakening sometimes gives the impression of arising abruptly. Yet it has often been preparing for years. Memories, experiences, contradictions and reactions remain scattered in our minds for a long time, without forming an intelligible whole. Then a detail, a conversation, an unusual fatigue or a situation that repeats itself…
Read the full article →Scientific specialisation has made it possible to enter very deeply into the substance of the real.
Scientific specialisation has made it possible to enter very deeply into the substance of the real. A cell, a chemical reaction, a brain, a planet or an institution each call for different instruments and methods. This division has produced considerable precision. Certain difficulties appear when the observed behaviour depends…
Read the full article →When the body ends up carrying what the environment no longer corrects
The tensions of a society do not stay locked inside its institutions, its budgets or its procedures. Part of them ends up reaching bodies. They alter sleep, attention, breathing, relationships, the capacity to recover, or simply the desire to continue certain activities. This transfer remains hard to measure because a person can keep…
Read the full article →The present carries the consequences of the past; the future will carry those of the present.
What we live through today results in large part from decisions, behaviours and dynamics set in motion yesterday. What we will live through tomorrow is already being built in what we do today. The present carries the consequences of the past; the future will carry those of the present.
Read the full article →When simplifying the world ends up preventing us from understanding it
We need to simplify the world in order to live in it. Every second, the brain receives a quantity of information it would be impossible to examine with equal depth. It classifies, compares, recognises patterns, eliminates possibilities and produces shortcuts. This capacity is fundamental. Faced with an immediate danger, a lengthy…
Read the full article →Restoring the living without freezing its history
The Earth has never been a stable backdrop. Long before the appearance of human beings, continents drifted, oceans opened and closed, climates tipped, rivers changed their beds, forests migrated and species appeared, moved or disappeared. Some regions that are desert today knew savannahs, lakes and extensive drainage networks, while…
Read the full article →From a snapshot of vulnerabilities to a genuinely dynamic governance
The IWEPS Foresight Paper no. 12, published in August 2026 under the title Measuring and governing climate risks: what is at stake?, marks an interesting development in the way adaptation is approached. Climate risks are described there as complex social-ecological phenomena, produced by the interactions between hazards, territories,…
Read the full article →Articles and essays integrated in full text: each card opens a page on this site, with no link to an external file.
Physical traces, information and the limits of historical reconstruction
The past leaves durable differences in the present: craters, strata, spectra, gravitational waves. These traces do not restore the event, but they preserve effects of it which, correctly interpreted, constrain historical inferences.
Read the full article →How the constraints of space engender natural architectures
It is readily said that nature prefers certain numbers. The three of the triangle, the six of the honeycomb cell, the twelve of the fullerene recur often enough for one to suspect an intention, a signature or a hidden law. The observation that feeds this impression is correct. The interpretation is not. The numbers associated with…
Read the full article →Towards a comparative physics of autonomy
Terrestrial life is perhaps not life, but a local realisation of a more general logic: that of organisations which produce the conditions of their own continuation.
Read the full article →One grid for understanding the transitions of persistence
The appearance of hadrons can serve as a starting point for reconstructing the successive transformations of matter. This history goes beyond an inventory of the constituents present at each stage. The term transition of organisation describes the process more precisely. Constituents can keep their identity while entering into new…
Read the full article →Channelled instability as a condition of persistence
Classical physics first advanced by isolating regularities, invariants and systems simple enough to be described mathematically. The mechanics of Galileo and Newton did not, however, assume that all systems tend toward equilibrium. An ideal mechanical system can oscillate, rotate or pursue its motion indefinitely without converging…
Read the full article →Proof of the formula Σ (6 − n) fₙ = 12 for a spherical trivalent network.
The formula Σ (6 − n) fₙ = 12 is neither an autonomous law nor a mysterious property of the number 12. It follows from Euler's formula applied to a cell decomposition of a closed surface, without boundary, of spherical topology, under a second decisive condition: the network is trivalent, that is, three edges meet at every vertex.…
Read the full article →From trajectory dependence to the reconstruction of the past and the reuse of traces
Cosmic memory cannot be reduced to the general fact that the past contributes to producing the present. This article distinguishes three regimes. The first corresponds to trajectory dependence. The
Read the full article →Inhomogeneities, backreaction and the coevolution of matter and geometry
Abstract. The Universe possesses none of the functional criteria by which a living organism is identified. No global metabolism, no active boundary, no mechanism of repair and no finality are known for it. The comparison with the living nevertheless retains a heuristic value when it bears on a more general property: the emergence of a…
Read the full article →One logic, several regimes of constraint
The 3 of the tilings, the 5 of the Platonic solids, the 12 of the fullerenes, the 0 of the torus and the orders 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 of crystallography do not constitute a collection of privileged numbers. They appear as the results of different constraints that reduce the space of possibilities until only certain compatible…
Read the full article →Measurement, structure and the resistance of the real
We tend to treat numbers and measurements as though they belonged directly to things. We say that a structure « is 12 », that a crystal « has a 6-fold symmetry » or that an organism « chooses 5 ». Yet the real never delivers an isolated number. It presents an…
Read the full article →A hierarchy of organisation founded on composition, configuration, interactions and environment
Abstract. This article examines a precise idea: the forms of matter observed in the Universe can be organised into a nested hierarchy, each level being built from entities of the previous level while possessing properties that also depend on their arrangement, their interactions and the conditions of the medium. The demonstration…
Read the full article →From quantum fields to the living
Persistence here denotes the capacity of an organisation to retain a recognisable identity over a given duration. That identity may correspond to a quantum state, a bound structure or a sustained functioning. It depends on the constituents present, on their configuration, on the interaction regime and on the conditions of the medium.…
Read the full article →An object that unsettles the history of the first galaxies
Abell 2744-QSO1 combines three characteristics rarely observed in a single system. Its light comes from an epoch situated roughly 700 million years after the Big Bang, its black hole reaches nearly 50 million solar masses, and the stellar mass of its host galaxy remains lower than that of the black hole. The dynamical measurements…
Read the full article →An operationalised relational architecture: accessibility, formation and survival
We propose a phenomenological model of hadronic stabilisation in three stages: structural accessibility, effective formation within an evolving medium, and then persistence of the state or population formed. The minimal version uses a single QCD combination built from independent confinement and chirality indicators, explicitly…
Read the full article →What measurements permit us to conclude about constants and physical regimes.
Experiments describe physical regularities of remarkable stability. That stability does not, on its own, establish that the laws are eternal. Physics therefore distinguishes an observation — the absence of detected variation within a given domain — from a more general hypothesis about the origin or the immutability of the…
Read the full article →Why knowledge of the Big Bang also depends on the epoch from which one observes
Abstract This article distinguishes the cosmic prior — that is, the initial conditions and parameters that structure the history of the observable Universe — from the local evidential warrant that allows an observer to reconstruct that prior. In a ΛCDM Universe undergoing accelerated expansion, the Big Bang does not become less true…
Read the full article →Viability, historicity, autonomy, functional memory, knowledge and responsibility
The sciences describe with growing precision physical transformations, living organisations, memory processes, forms of learning and the mechanisms by which knowledge is produced. The relations between these levels nevertheless remain exposed to two opposite errors: isolating them until their continuities become unintelligible, or…
Read the full article →Dimensions, architectures and the regulation of transformability
An organisation can maintain its conditions of existence, preserve the effects of its history, adjust its functioning and increase its capacity for anticipation without thereby becoming reflexive in the strong sense. Organisational autonomy and reflexive autonomy must therefore be distinguished. The first concerns the capacity of a…
Read the full article →How far-from-equilibrium organisation makes regulation, memory and adaptation possible
A living cell and a cell whose activity has ceased can still contain, for a certain time, a large part of the same molecules. Yet their futures rapidly diverge. The first sustains ionic gradients, renews its components, regulates its exchanges and repairs part of its damage. In the second, these processes progressively cease to be…
Read the full article →From stable forms to matter able to rebuild and anticipate its own continuity
Matter can last in several ways. An atom persists through physical stability, a crystal through the cohesion of its structure, a flame or a cyclone through the maintenance of a flow. The living crosses a different threshold: it mobilises energy and matter to sustain its organisation, repair its components, reproduce and transmit a…
Read the full article →Toward a relational persistence of the real
The usual image answers spontaneously: in space-time. Events would take place within a prior framework, like objects set down on a stage. The laws would then describe the way these objects evolve within that container.
Read the full article →Towards an organisational, dispositional and multidimensional characterisation of living systems
Defining living systems remains difficult because no isolated criterion seems sufficient. Metabolism excludes certain dormant forms when it is required as a permanent activity. Reproduction does not concern every organism taken individually. Darwinian evolution describes mainly the transformations of lineages. Regulation, memory and…
Read the full article →From simulated constraint to a politics of margin
Complexity does not mechanically produce innovation. It opens a space of exploration by multiplying competences, resources, memories, connections and possible trajectories. But it also engenders costs of its own: divergent interests, coordination delays, conflicts of interpretation, cross-dependencies and difficulties in rapidly…
Read the full article →Between informational dependence and organisational closure
Let us fix a system boundary S, a reference instant t, a descriptive resolution R, a past window P−Δ−(t), a present state XR(t) and a future window F+Δ+(t). The parameters Δ− and Δ+ designate respectively the temporal depth of the past considered and the future horizon over which the dependence is evaluated.
Read the full article →Externalised memory, cumulative culture and constitutive substitutability
Exosomatisation refers to the displacement of certain functions outside the biological body, towards tools, symbols, institutions and technical infrastructures. In human beings this process no longer concerns physical action alone. It affects memory, computation, representation, coordination and the transmission of knowledge.…
Read the full article →Relations, representations and the resistance of the real
A resemblance between two forms does not suffice to establish what links them. It may come from a documented inspiration, a common ancestry, a convergence under constraint, a coincidence or an analogy constructed by the observer. Scientific representation belongs to another register. It rests on operations of measurement, an explicit…
Read the full article →Twelve principles for keeping open the loop between the real, representation and revision
This manifesto calls neither for a return to knowledge without abstraction, nor for distrust of mathematics. It asserts that the power of a representation increases when it retains the memory of its conditions, its losses and its limits.
Read the full article →From material historicity to reflexive consciousness
A theoretical proposal and an interdisciplinary research programme. The framework connects material historicity, living organisation, consciousness and freedom without supposing an elementary consciousness in all matter and without introducing any substance foreign to the physical world.
Read the full article →When reflexivity makes responsibility possible
We are not at the centre of the Universe, and nothing indicates that reflexivity is its destination. On the cosmic scale, our appearance seems to answer no identifiable project. Stars form and disappear, galaxies evolve, matter is transformed according to regularities that appear neither to await our presence nor necessarily to…
Read the full article →From transformation to memory
Reality never presents itself as a collection of finished objects. Every structure carries the effects of the interactions, constraints and transformations that made it possible. Part of those effects disappears. Another part remains inscribed in trajectories, forms, compositions and relations. The present thus preserves a historical…
Read the full article →The child, inheritance and the responsibility of transmitting
We readily tell the relation between adults and children as a downward movement. The former give life, transmit a language, values, a culture, habits and ways of inhabiting the world. They protect, educate, guide and accompany. The child receives, learns and builds itself. This reading grasps an essential dimension of transmission,…
Read the full article →Regime transitions are often treated as a sectoral topic: ecology, climate, finance, infrastructure. This framing is misleading. A regime transition is not a disciplinary theme. It is a structural behavior that emerges whenever a system combines nonlinearity, feedbacks, slow accumulations, finite constraints, and multi-scale…
Read the articleThe triad rigidity, brittleness, unexpected collapse is one of the most robust invariants in complex systems ecology since Holling. Yet it remains very poorly integrated into real-world practices.
Read the articleThe trajectory rigidity, brittleness, unexpected collapse is neither a metaphor nor a simple rhetorical motif. It describes a dynamic mechanism documented in ecology and socio-ecological systems, then found under convergent formulations in organizations, clinical psychology of overcontrol, and institutional governance.
Read the articlePanarchy, as formulated by Holling, Gunderson and their co-authors, describes a multi-scale mechanism of rigidification and tipping. ORI-C, for its part, proposes a contractual method for detecting regime transitions, based on measurable variables, canonical tests, and strict traceability.
Read the articleA living system persists by keeping certain variables within limits compatible with its functioning. This viability depends on flows, regulations, margins and relations with the milieu. It provides a criterion for assessing models that claim to describe living systems.
Read the articleAccepting the living as it is, is not a moral posture. It is an act of lucidity. It means recognizing that life cannot be governed by the comfortable grammars of the mechanical, the linear, the clean and the controllable.
Read the articleA model of living systems must explain how an organisation maintains itself despite perturbations, exchanges with the milieu and its own transformations. This requirement does not disqualify any particular discipline. It reveals the limits of several simplifications when they become general explanations.
Read the articleMatter can form durable organisations when its degrees of freedom are constrained by interactions and fed by flows. Living systems push this capacity further thanks to processes that maintain, repair and reproduce their organisation.
Read the articleAbrupt changes of regime appear in many domains, from thermodynamics to living systems. They can present comparable signatures, such as hysteresis, scaling laws, avalanches or bifurcations. These resemblances allow a structured comparison without implying that the mechanisms are identical.
Read the articleAn organism maintains its organisation thanks to continuous exchanges of matter and energy with its environment. It transforms resources, sustains gradients and dissipates heat in particular. This activity respects the second law of thermodynamics when the balance is taken over the organism and its milieu. The local order of living…
Read the articleEarth's climate has varied considerably over the course of its history. The geological and palaeoclimatic record bears witness to glacial periods, warmings, prolonged droughts and rapid shifts. This natural variability in no way diminishes the present role of human greenhouse-gas emissions. It is a reminder that a climate system can…
Read the articleOur societies have progressively extended a logic of mastery to realities that evolve through adaptation, interaction, feedback and emergence. This way of acting has produced remarkable results wherever a problem could be isolated and its parameters sufficiently stabilised. It shows its limits when faced with living, ecological or…
Read the articleThe term blindism is used here to designate a structural refusal to integrate information that calls a system's assumptions into question. The real evolves at several scales, retains the effects of its history, and can undergo thresholds or ruptures. A return to the previous state is never guaranteed.
Read the articleFor Freud, the decisive point is not simply the existence of unconscious contents. It is the dynamic nature of the unconscious. Certain contents become incompatible with the ego's economy. They are then kept out of the conscious field by an active operation of repression. But this exclusion is not a suppression. What is repressed…
Read the articleFor a long time, a certain way of speaking about the living imposed itself as self-evident. On one side, domination. On the other, cooperation. As if all of nature could be summed up in this double register. This formula has the advantage of simplicity. But precisely, that is its problem. It does not merely simplify reality. It…
Read the articleReality cannot be adequately grasped either as a set of blocks separated by absolute boundaries, or as an undifferentiated continuum in which all distinction would be illusory. It is made of gradients, but also of thresholds. Of plasticity, but also of constraints. Of transitions, but also of forms.
Read the articleStarting postulate: the viability of a living system depends on its capacity to maintain a functional coherence throughout its transformations.
Read the articleWe live in a paradoxical time. Never has humanity had such transformative power at its disposal. And yet, the more the world transforms, the more disoriented humans appear in the face of what they produce. The more their means grow, the more their capacity to inwardly orient this power seems to waver.
Read the articleFor, strictly speaking, we almost never consume matter itself. Atoms do not disappear. Carbon, iron, copper, nitrogen, phosphorus remain. What we actually destroy are not the elements. They are the differences that made them useful. Differences in concentration, organisation, chemical potential, fertility, stability. In a word: gradients.
Read the articleLucidity is not merely a perceptual capacity. It is an economy of one's relationship to reality — a way of organising attention, tension, symbolisation and security in the face of what does not fit. It does not only describe what the subject sees. It engages the part that looks, the function this gaze serves, the psychic cost it…
Read the articleThe formation of lucidity in an incoherent environment follows a five-layer trajectory: axioms, initial conditions, adaptive operators, formation dynamics, and stabilisation-transmutation. Each layer does not merely have a descriptive function. It acts upon the next. The model must therefore be understood as processual.
Read the articleInner clarity is not always built in a coherent environment. In some people it develops in contact with repeated gaps between words, gestures and the atmosphere they live in. The child then learns to observe variations of tone, silences and contradictions in order to reduce uncertainty.
Read the articleLiving organisms maintain themselves through regulations that combine several levels. Some are local and distributed. Others rest on centres of coordination, hierarchies or global signals. Their coherence therefore does not come from a single principle, but from the articulation between interactions, memory, constraints and adjustments.
Read the articleScience advances neither by simple linear accumulation nor by pure historical arbitrariness. It progresses under constraint. That constraint is reality. A theoretical framework can organise, simplify, predict, unify. But it cannot make what resists it disappear indefinitely. At a certain point, anomalies accumulate, patches multiply,…
Read the articleSemantic equivocation cannot be reduced to a contingent imperfection of ordinary language. It possesses a structural dimension, insofar as it proceeds from the inscription of every utterance within a determinate form of life. A word is never a simple signifier available in the abstraction of a lexical system. It is always caught up in…
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