PhronesisChronic tangent-following is characterized here as a structural wrong attractor within the displacement framework of productive conversation dynamics. We formalize the phenomenon as associative drift—a mode of cognitive engagement in which each local transition is plausible and responsive, yet the cumulative trajectory departs systematically from the calibrated ground state S^0 of focused, generative exchange.
We introduce the displacement functional = D()\,dt, where D() denotes the instantaneous displacement cost of operating at position in conversation-state space, and show that chronic tangent-following defines a compact basin B_W surrounding the wrong attractor W whose interior is characterized by focused-engagement foreclosure—the progressive occlusion of access to the states in which substantive intellectual work becomes possible.
We identify nine structural propositions (P1–P9) governing the dynamics: the local plausibility of each tangent step, the superlinear accumulation of displacement cost, the hysteresis of return trajectories, the role of associative richness as risk amplifier, the phase transition from productive digression to chronic drift, the foreclosure mechanism, intervention geometry, recovery cost structure, and systemic effects on collaborative field quality.
The paper concludes with a characterization of return protocols and a structural account of why calibrated productive conversation is not merely a preference but a dynamically privileged attractor.: tangent-following, displacement framework, wrong attractor, associative drift, coherence-avoidance, focused engagement, conversation dynamics, S^0