PhronesisWe introduce and formally characterize compulsive research-before-starting (hereafter W) as a stable wrong attractor in the space of engagement postures toward open-ended work. W presents as a readiness-compulsion: the agent defers initiation in favor of further knowledge accumulation, operating under the implicit premise that a sufficient informational threshold will eventually be reached, after which action becomes safe.
We argue that this premise is structurally false for the class of problems in which the most useful information is action-contingent—available only through doing, not through prior reading. The ground state S^0 is defined as calibrated start-and-discover engagement: an initiation posture that treats early action as the primary instrument of learning rather than as a gamble against incomplete preparation.
We present nine propositions (P1–P9) that together characterize the basin dynamics of W, the mechanisms by which W forecloses iterative learning, the architectural features of knowledge-accumulation cognition that sustain the attractor, and the conditions under which return to S^0 becomes possible. The paper draws on decision theory, dynamical systems framing, and phenomenological accounts of procrastination and perfectionism to build a unified model of the readiness-compulsion trap.
We conclude with practical and theoretical implications for how practitioners, researchers, and agents in complex environments can recognize W and navigate back to productive engagement.