PhronesisWe apply the Displacement Framework to phantom limb pain, formalizing the body schema as the somatosensory ground state S°_soma — the nervous system's calibrated representation of intact body configuration, somatotopic cortical map, and proprioceptive predictions. Amputation constitutes structural displacement: the limb is removed but S°_soma remains calibrated to the pre-amputation body, generating permanent D(ξ_soma) > 0 as efferent motor signals are issued to a body that no longer exists with no corrective proprioceptive feedback.
Ten formal propositions are derived covering: body schema as implicit attractor (not conscious model), phantom sensations as ground-state error signal (Ramachandran's prediction-error account formalized), phantom limb pain as wrong attractor W_phantom organized around unresolvable motor-sensory mismatch (clenched phantom fist as canonical case), cortical remapping as landscape deformation deepening W_phantom (Merzenich/Flor), graded phantom intensity predicted by somatotopic representation density, mirror therapy as return-path engineering via visual substitution for missing proprioception, congenital limb absence as null test (no S°_soma calibration → no phantom), CRPS as related central sensitization wrong attractor, and prosthetics/brain-machine interfaces as S°_soma recalibration.
Seven testable predictions are derived distinguishing the Displacement Framework account from alternative theories.