The term ‘metastable’ enters the depth-psychology corpus principally through Gilbert Simondon’s monumental ontogenetic project, where it functions as the indispensable counter-concept to stable equilibrium. For Simondon, the history of thought had silently presupposed a being at rest — stable, substantialized, exhausted of potential — and thereby rendered individuation philosophically invisible. Metastability names the alternative: a charged, tensile condition in which incompatible orders of magnitude coexist without yet resolving, holding energy in reserve precisely because no adequate structure has yet emerged to discharge it. Individuation, on this account, is the event by which a metastable system resolves its inner disparation into a new regime — crystallization being the paradigm case, psychical becoming the extension. The individual is thus never a substance but the provisional resolution of a metastable tension, itself remaining surrounded by a residue of pre-individual charge that sustains further becoming. Daniel Siegel’s neuroscientific register picks up a cognate concept under the rubric of ‘metastable brain states,’ designating neural configurations capable of flexible reconfiguration between integration and segregation — a dynamic that subtends cognitive flexibility and executive function. Robin Carhart-Harris’s entropic-brain framework gestures toward related terrain through the language of criticality and primary consciousness. The key tension across these voices concerns whether metastability is primarily an ontological condition of being-as-becoming or a functional-systems property of neural organization — a dispute that productively illuminates the boundary between philosophical and empirical depth psychology.
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
Simondon identifies the concept of metastable equilibrium as the missing foundation that prior philosophy of individuation lacked, without which becoming cannot be thought.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
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 articulates the dual replacement — stable equilibrium by metastable equilibrium, good form by information — as the programmatic core of his theory of living individuation.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
the individual as transductive reality. By transductive reality, we mean that the individual is neither a substantial being like an element, nor a pure rapport, but the reality of a metastable relation. There is no veritable individual except in a system in which a metastable state occurs.
Simondon defines the individual as ‘transductive reality,’ grounding individuality ontologically in the prior existence of a metastable system rather than in substance.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
Metastable brain states allow for the flexible reconfiguration of neural networks while avoiding extreme integrative or segregative brain configurations. … The current study supports the notion that metastability and cognitive flexibility may arise from similar brain configurations.
Siegel, citing Nomi and colleagues, introduces metastability as a neurological concept denoting the brain’s capacity to shift dynamically between integrated and segregated states, correlating this with cognitive flexibility.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020thesis
the psychical activity at the heart of the theory of individuation as a resolution of the problematic is, the veritable ways in which metastable systems become established in life must be discovered
Simondon extends metastability into the psychical register, framing psychological life as the ongoing discovery of how metastable systems constitute and resolve themselves.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
depending on temperature and pressure conditions, sometimes the crystalline state is stable while the amorphous state is metastable, and sometimes vice versa. The passage from the metastable state to the stable state gives rise to a determinate thermal effect
Simondon grounds the concept of metastability in Tammann’s thermodynamic theory of crystalline and amorphous states, establishing the physical basis for his wider ontogenetic appropriation.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
While the system is in a state of metastable equilibrium, it is able to be modulated by singularities and is the theater of processes of amplification, summation, and communication.
Simondon specifies the operational consequence of metastable equilibrium: the system becomes susceptible to modulation by singularities and capable of amplification, which is the condition of possibility for form-taking.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
a system, a metastable unity consisting of a plurality of ensembles between which there is a relation of analogy and an energetic potential. The ensemble does not possess information … the system perseveres in its metastable being due to the activity of information
Simondon distinguishes systems from mere ensembles by their metastable unity, arguing that information is the operative principle sustaining a system’s metastable condition against entropic degradation.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
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
Simondon critiques homeostasis as an insufficient account of metastability in living beings, arguing it describes only maintenance rather than the generative ontogenesis that metastability properly enables.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
the individual corresponds to a certain dimensionality of the real, i.e. to an associated topology and chronology; the individual is an edifice … a reality that corresponds to a certain state of (generally metastable) equilibrium
Simondon characterizes the individual as a dimensional reality grounded in a generally metastable equilibrium, emphasizing that individuality is always provisional and energetically conditioned.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
it can always continue to grow if it is put back into a metastable milieu that it can structure
Simondon demonstrates through the crystal example that the continuation of individuation depends upon the persistence of a metastable milieu available for structuration.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
the processes of differentiations that are deployed starting from a metastable pre-individual system, wrought with tensions, of which the individual is one of the phases of deployment
The introduction frames Simondon’s entire project as the analysis of differentiation processes departing from a tensile metastable pre-individual system, of which the individual is merely one phase.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
A substance conserves its individuality when it is in the most stable state proportionate to its own energetic conditions … a certain structure must correspond to a certain energetic state of the system
Simondon articulates the structural-energetic co-determination that underlies metastable individuality, showing that stability and metastability are always relative to specific energetic conditions.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
the absolute genesis of the individuated state is more difficult to define than its relative genesis through the passage from a metastable
Simondon notes the analytical asymmetry between absolute genesis and the relative genesis accomplished through passage from a metastable state, distinguishing amorphous from crystalline individuation.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
based on the discontinuities of conditions to define types that correspond to domains of stability or metastability; then, within these types, it is possible to define particular beings
Simondon maps the relationship between metastability domains and typological individuality, showing how discontinuities of physical conditions delimit zones within which particular beings are differentiated.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
metastability generally supposes both the presence of two orders of magnitude and the absence of interactive communication between them.
Simondon provides a precise structural definition of metastability as the condition in which two incommensurable orders of magnitude coexist without yet establishing interactive communication.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
transduction does not go elsewhere to seek a principle to resolve the problem of a domain: it extracts the resolving structure from the very tensions of this domain, just as the supersaturated solution crystallizes due to its own potentials
Simondon links transduction to metastable resolution, showing that the resolving structure emerges immanently from the domain’s own tensions rather than being imposed from without.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
the good form is not the stabilized, fixed form that Gestalt theory believed to locate, but the form rich in energetic potential, charged with future transductions
Simondon redefines ‘good form’ away from Gestalt’s stabilized ideal toward a form laden with metastable potential and oriented toward further individuation.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting
integration creates coherence by enabling the mind’s flow of information and energy to achieve a balance in its movement toward maximizing complexity. This movement of the flow of states of mind can involve activity within an individual and with other people.
Siegel frames neural integration and complexity as the system-level context within which metastable brain states function, situating the concept within his broader IPNB framework.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020aside
individuation takes place in a quantum manner through abrupt leaps, each plateau of individuation being capable of once again relating itself to the following as a pre-individual state of the being
Simondon extends the logic of metastable resolution to describe successive plateaus of individuation, each of which re-establishes a pre-individual charge available for further phase-shifts.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020aside