PhronesisChronic advice-seeking constitutes a self-reinforcing behavioral attractor that systematically forecloses the internal discernment capacities required for calibrated autonomous judgment. This paper develops a formal displacement framework to characterize the dynamic structure of consultation-compulsion: the state S^0 of grounded autonomous decision-making, the displacement function D() measuring the cost of repeated decision-outsourcing, the accumulated displacement = D()\,dt that tracks erosion of internal confidence over time, and the wrong attractor W representing the stable equilibrium of chronic advice-seeking behavior.
We introduce the concept of the internal-discernment foreclosure basin—a region of state space from which unaided return to S^0 becomes dynamically impractical without deliberate intervention. We characterize phase transitions between functional consultation and compulsive outsourcing, identify the architectural features that stabilize W against perturbation, and develop formal conditions for recovery trajectories.
Nine formal propositions establish the theoretical core, covering attractor definition, cost structure, basin geometry, foreclosure mechanism, phase behavior, intervention efficacy, recovery dynamics, systemic propagation effects, and the ethical geometry of the wrong attractor. The framework applies to individual decision-making pathology, organizational consultation culture, and the emerging dynamics of human–AI advisory dependence.