Evolution as Displacement Optimization: Natural Selection as Gradient Descent on D(ξ_fitness), Extinction as Wrong Attractor, and the Evolutionary Ground State

Natural selection is gradient descent on the fitness displacement landscape D(ξ_fitness). Extinction is a wrong attractor. Speciation is S⁰ bifurcation. The Red Queen is coupled displacement preventing joint ground state. Mismatch disease is D(ξ_environment) from EEA to modernity — the organism adapted to a ground state that no longer exists.