A Physics of Intention

Trust Map

Lets imagine a Physics of Intention …

The study of how commitments move, bind, cluster, and ripple across systems.

In this frame:

• Trust has mass

• Commitments have momentum

• Fulfilled promises generate stabilizing force

For now, let’s define a type of intention (around its edges) as:
A declared commitment
Backed by time, energy, or resources
Measured by fulfillment over time.

We can refine this by tracking relational density: who holds whose commitments, how long they go unfulfilled, and how often they’re renewed.

Intention density = commitments made / fulfilled over time.

Few commitments made, fewer fulfilled. People aren't promising — or aren't bothering to track fulfillment. This might be due to:

• Historical betrayal or broken cycles

• Fear of overcommitment or exploitation

• Social fragmentation or trauma

Think of it like a social vacuum — no promises, no pull, no orbit.
Whether resources are pooled or hoarded, whether power is shared or siloed — both are configurations of commitment. Both follow patterns of flow, tension, inertia, and potential. The difference isn’t in some moral binary, but in the direction and consequence of those flows.

In this view, concentration is not inherently bad. It's a mass effect ... like an accumulation of fear, or control.

Mass effect: the cumulative social weight of commitments around a person or institution.

Pooling, too, can become siloing - stagnant or coercive if not continually re-committed and connected across nodes.

There is no essential separation.
….. structurally they belong to the same continuum, but systemically they diverge based on flow and feedback loops. … the unity and the difference both hold.

Only different energetic patterns are some extractive, some regenerative ... The science lies in mapping these patterns, not judging them in isolation.

Pooling and hoarding aren’t different species — they’re phases on the same spectrum of relational flow.

What matters is whether the configuration increases reciprocity potential or friction.
Think of it like water: pooling can irrigate or stagnate, depending on whether there’s circulation.
Concentration isn’t bad — it becomes harmful when circulation fails and intention becomes control.

Let’s acknowledge the breakdowns:
— Trust loops that become cliques.
— Pools that get captured by charismatic power.
— Swaps that exploit asymmetries of need.

There might be trust, but it's unexpressed — intentions exist but are not made visible.
This is common in:

• Marginalized zones (where visibility feels risky)

• Informal care systems (untracked, taken for granted)

• Burnout conditions (people are still holding each other, but no energy is moving)

Here, the network isn’t broken …. just quiet ….. like neurons not firing.

These aren’t edge cases — they’re predictable. We should treat them as part of the physics too: entropy events, where order gives way to short-term advantage

We need to develop the equivalent of field equations for coordination:

What amplifies trust?

Overcentralization

Sometimes, low density in one region correlates with overdensity elsewhere — one actor or node absorbing all coordination, disempowering others. Classic symptoms:

• Authority figures

• Gatekeeping institutions

• Single points of trust absorption without redistribution

This is the gravity well effect — other nodes are flattened.

What dampens reciprocity?

What stabilizes diversity in promise ecologies?

What triggers metabolic collapse?

Exodus or Withholding

People may intentionally withdraw trust:

• As resistance or boycott

• Due to misalignment with values

• In protest of unfulfilled past commitments

An active absence — a void that has memory.

Artists see patterns. Scientists name them. Stewards test them.

That’s the shape of one science: a metabolic physics of intention.

In one village, the promise to repair a roof circulates like water — deferred, passed, held, fulfilled. When one steward vanishes, the trust stagnates. When they return and recommit, flow resumes. We mapped it in a notebook and saw: it wasn’t about money. It was about relational mass.

Stewards are pattern-seers and feedback-tenders.

In a practical stewarding sense:

• Trust heat maps: Who makes promises? Who fulfills? Who never appears?

• Flow charts: Track origin and destination of vouchers, swaps, redemptions

• Relational density overlays: Who is connected to whom? Where are the silences?

You can think of low-density zones as the cold voids in a thermodynamic model of care.

To test this science, here’s a simple start:

• Map one local trust flow: who makes promises, who fulfills, who holds.

• Name the forces in play: inertia, tension, entropy.

• Tag where commitments concentrate, and whether they circulate.

• Propose an adjustment: seed, swap, limit, or rebalance.
  That’s how this science begins — not in theory, but in the living laboratory of community.”

• Questions a Steward Might Ask:

  • Is this area quiet, or excluded?

  • Is it healing, or hiding?

  • Is the silence consent — or consequence?

  Sometimes trust isn’t missing — it’s just uninvited.

…. in this physics, low density is almost never “nothing.”
It’s a field of potential … a signal of systemic dysfunction.

The landscape here is enormous.
And the steward’s task is to listen to the quiet edges.

Just following the breadcrumbs left to us all.