PhronesisWe analyze compulsive winning—the habitual orientation of all competitive activity toward the single goal of victory—as a dynamical wrong attractor within a formal displacement framework. We define the ground state S^0 as calibrated competitive engagement, in which an agent competes for the intrinsic goods of excellence, growth, and genuine challenge; in this state, winning serves as a welcome indicator of quality but not the sole criterion of value, and loss is informative rather than catastrophic.
The wrong attractor W is reached when loss becomes intolerable, when the process of competition is rendered invisible unless it produces victories, and when the agent's competition-selection is governed entirely by likelihood of winning rather than by the potential for challenge or growth. We introduce a displacement cost function D() measuring signed distance from calibrated engagement, define = D()\,dt as accumulated displacement, and analyze the basin structure of W: genuine positive social feedback from winning deepens the basin as process-engagement atrophies and as loss becomes progressively more threatening to self-concept.
We formalize nine propositions—P1 through P9—covering the loss-intolerance mechanism, basin depth as a function of identity–outcome conflation, the competition-selection distortion, process-blindness dynamics, and return conditions. The return path involves process-engagement practice, deliberate selection of challenging opponents, reframing loss as information about current level, and separating self-worth from outcome.
This paper is the 766th entry in The Phronesis Issues preprint series on displacement dynamics and wrong attractors.