Equilibrium

Equilibrium in the depth-psychology corpus is not a single, stable concept but a contested field of tension between at least three distinct registers: the physical, the biological, and the psychic. The dominant critical move — traceable through Simondon, McGilchrist, Merleau-Ponty as cited by Thompson, and Schelling as cited by McGilchrist — is the rejection of static or ‘stable’ equilibrium as a sufficient model for living and psychological reality. Simondon is the most systematic voice here, distinguishing stable equilibrium (which ‘excludes becoming’) from metastable equilibrium, the latter being the only condition adequate to ontogenesis, individuation, and life. McGilchrist reinforces this by insisting that the Golden Mean is not a flaccid midpoint but a ‘dynamic equipoise’ produced by taut opposing forces; the acrobat stays upright only by virtue of perpetual disequilibrium. The I Ching literature (Wilhelm, Cleary, Anthony) provides a cosmological frame in which equilibrium is the transient harmony achieved when each thing occupies its proper place within a pervasive order — itself always susceptible to disturbance. Quenk’s typological usage is more clinical, treating ‘equilibrium return’ as a measurable post-stress restoration in Jungian personality types. Across all registers, the corpus converges on a paradox: genuine equilibrium is dynamic, self-disturbing, and productive; the mere absence of conflict is not equilibrium but deadness.

In the library 17 passages

Individuation has not been able to be adequately thought and described because only a single form of equilibrium was known, namely stable equilibrium; what was unknown was precisely metastable equilibrium; being was implicitly supposed in a state of stable equilibrium; however, stable equilibrium excludes becoming

Simondon argues that the entire tradition failed to think individuation because it recognised only stable equilibrium, whereas life and becoming require metastable equilibrium as their ontological ground.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

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To account for the activity of the living, we must replace the notion of stable equilibrium with that of metastable equilibrium, and we must replace the notion of good form with that of information; the system in which the being acts is a universe of metastability

Simondon proposes metastable equilibrium, paired with information rather than form, as the operative concept for any adequate theory of living activity and individuation.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

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he speaks of an equilibrium to life that must constantly be disturbed and re-established. Although he does not use this image, what comes to mind for me is the way in which the acrobat can balance on a tightrope only by virtue of its constant capacity for disequilibrium

McGilchrist, drawing on Schelling, argues that living equilibrium is constitutively dynamic: it must be perpetually disturbed and re-established, not held as a fixed state.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis

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he speaks of an equilibrium to life that must constantly be disturbed and re-established. Although he does not use this image, what comes to mind for me is the way in which the acrobat can balance on a tightrope only by virtue of its constant capacity for disequilibrium

McGilchrist, drawing on Schelling, argues that living equilibrium is constitutively dynamic: it must be perpetually disturbed and re-established, not held as a fixed state.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis

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Those people in whom balance is achieved merely by ‘toning down to an unattractive equilibrium’ are very different from those who achieve a living harmony… Elements so separated or so reduced to equilibrium would disclose little even to men of deep insight

Via Schleiermacher, McGilchrist distinguishes a deadening reductive equilibrium from a living harmony generated by the full tension of opposing impulses.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis

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Those people in whom balance is achieved merely by ‘toning down to an unattractive equilibrium’ are very different from those who achieve a living harmony… Elements so separated or so reduced to equilibrium would disclose little even to men of deep insight

Via Schleiermacher, McGilchrist distinguishes a deadening reductive equilibrium from a living harmony generated by the full tension of opposing impulses.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis

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we speak of vital structures, on the contrary, when equilibrium is obtained, not with respect to real and present conditions, but with respect to conditions which are only virtual and which the system itself brings into existence

Thompson, citing Merleau-Ponty, defines living structures by a characteristic form of equilibrium oriented toward self-created virtual conditions rather than the discharge of present external forces.

Thompson, Evan, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007thesis

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The ontogenesis of the living being cannot be thought based on the notion of homeostasis alone, i.e. the perpetuation of metastable equilibrium through self-regulations. This representation of metastability could be suitable for describing a fully adult being that would merely maintain itself in existence

Simondon argues that even metastable equilibrium, when conceived solely as homeostatic self-regulation, is insufficient for ontogenesis — it describes maintenance but not growth or becoming.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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There are conditions of equilibrium, in which a certain harmony prevails, and conditions of disturbed equilibrium, in which confusion prevails. The reason is that there is a system of order pervading the entire world. When, in accordance with this order, each thing is in its appropriate place, harmony is established.

The I Ching commentary frames equilibrium as the transient correspondence between things and their proper places within a universal order, always susceptible to mechanical disturbance.

Richard Wilhelm, Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching or Book of Changes, 1950supporting

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the clay at the end of molding is the mass in which all the forces of deformation encounter in every direction forces equal and in opposite directions to those of which their equilibrium consists. The mold translates its existence into the matter by making it tend towards a condition of equilibrium.

Simondon uses the physical example of molding to show how equilibrium is the result of a dynamic resolution of opposing forces distributed through matter, not the imposition of static form.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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the state of equilibrium (equivalence between the distribution of electrons and the gradient of the electrical field) is obtained in an extremely short time… we do not stop when equilibrium is attained but continue by modifying the mold

Simondon’s analysis of the modulator shows that in certain physical systems equilibrium is perpetually deferred through continuous re-modulation — prefiguring the metastable logic of living beings.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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The interior maintains its internal equilibrium based on the information received through the boundary which opposes entropy… Each cell membrane maintains the equilibrium of its interior just as the body as a whole is organized to maintain homeostatic equilibrium.

Mizen, drawing on Friston’s Markov Blanket framework, identifies internal equilibrium maintained against entropy as the foundational biological principle operative from cell to organism.

Mizen, C. Susan, The Self and alien self in psyche and somasupporting

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on this archetypal level, the repetition creates a thermodynamic dis-equilibrium… far from equilibrium systems are: nonlinear and occasionally indeterminate. They do not tend toward minimum free energy and maximum entropy but may evolve toward a new dynamic regime

Conforti applies thermodynamic and chaos-theory models to psychic life, arguing that archetypal repetition drives systems far from equilibrium into bifurcation points capable of producing higher-order complexity.

Conforti, Michael, Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche, 1999supporting

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if the two potential energies… were rigorously equal, the pendulum would have a period of infinite oscillation, i.e. would be in a state of indifferent equilibrium. Everything occurs as if the potential energy that is effectively converted into kinetic energy… were an energy resulting from the difference between two other potential energies.

Simondon uses the pendulum to illustrate indifferent equilibrium — the neutral, energetically unproductive state that differs from both stable and metastable equilibrium.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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If we begin with a liquid substance in the state of stable equilibrium under a pressure P, and if we progressively lower the temperature by maintaining this constant pressure… the liquid in question will be in the metastable state.

Simondon uses crystallisation thermodynamics to show how stable equilibrium can be displaced into metastability under changed conditions, providing the physical analogy for individuation.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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