The Replicator-Optimization Mechanism: A Scale-Relative Formalism for Persistence-Conditioned Dynamics with Application to Consent-Based Metaethics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a formal framework for replicator-mutator dynamics with a focus on scale-relative modeling, applying it to political philosophy and connecting descriptive dynamics to normative claims.

Contribution

It presents a novel scale-relative kernel parameterization, a consent-friction model for political theory, and derives the formalism from social contract theory rather than biology or physics.

Findings

Framework generates testable predictions about social dynamics.

Operationalization of friction and legitimacy enables empirical measurement.

Falsifiable at the measurement level, not just formal structure.

Abstract

This paper formalizes a widely used dynamical class--replicator-mutator dynamics and Price-style selection-and-transmission--and makes explicit the modeling choices (scale, atomic unit, interaction topology, transmission kernel) that determine how this class instantiates across domains. The backbone is known; we do not claim to have discovered selection. The novel contributions are threefold: (i) a scale-relative kernel parameterization where atomic units are themselves parameters, enabling systematic instantiation across physics, biology, economics, cognition, and social organization; (ii) a consent-friction instantiation for political philosophy, where friction is the primitive, legitimacy functions as survival probability, and belief-transfer functions as mutation kernel; and (iii) a derivation path from social contract theory rather than from biology or physics, arriving at the same formal structure via an independent route. We provide a bridge principle connecting descriptive dynamics to instrumental normativity: if agents prefer lower expected friction, then "ought" claims are shorthand for policies that reduce expected friction under the specified dynamics. This conditional structure avoids the is-ought fallacy while grounding normative discourse in empirically tractable dynamics. We address pathological cases (authoritarian stability, suppressed friction) through explicit modeling of latent versus observed friction. The framework generates testable predictions through operationalization of friction, legitimacy, and belief-transfer dynamics, and is falsifiable at the level of measurement apparatus rather than formal structure.