The Boundary of Displacement

The displacement framework—where every system has an intended ground state S_0, an actual state S^*, a displacement between them, a daily cost D(), and a return cost C_return()—has been applied across consciousness, love, health, work, attention, technology, society, and ecology. But it does not fit all systems. This paper states the boundary: what the framework does NOT explain.

Systems with no ground state to return to, irreversible thresholds, emergent attractors that were never ground states, systems that actively punish return attempts, systems without agents to pay costs, and systems locked by path-dependence are outside the frame. Stating this boundary converts the framework from an unfalsifiable metaphor into a bounded theory. What survives the boundary—the renewal-reward theorem, the empirical structure of displacement, the cube-root cadence law—is genuine.