New essay: Shutdown

A new research essay, Shutdown, examines how goal-directed systems terminate their activities. Drawing on examples from motor control, cell biology, and economics, it approaches shutdown as a problem of architecture and governance rather than simply the execution of a stop command.

The central argument is that the same relationships that construct and sustain goals and competencies can also govern their termination. Shutdown is therefore not an exceptional problem but a recurring feature of how goal-directed systems are organized.