Published October 28, 2026 | Version v2

One Operator, Many Worlds: Elastic Net Reconstruction of Hidden Structure Across Scales From Quasicrystals to Financial Markets and Legislative Voting

  • 1. Independent Researcher

Description

[PARADIGM:  COMPUTATIONAL EPISTEMOLOGY]

This Short Research Note introduces an instrumental framework within the paradigm of Computational Epistemology to demystify and deconstruct "grand titanic theories" in political sociology, macroeconomics, and cognitive psychology. We assert that complex qualitative narratives in soft sciences often obscure trivial mathematical kernels borrowed from 19th-century physics, artificially stabilized by high-dimensional disciplinary overlays and the institutional authority of their architects. Using tools from computational linear algebra and inverse problem theory, we analyze the geometry of the residual Hessian to quantify information redundancy.

The paper demonstrates three tactical applications:
1. Political Sociology: The alleged multidimensionality of parliamentary factionalism is exposed as a low-rank linear manifold constrained by binary quantization (the Guttman horseshoe effect, yielding R^2 = 0.6367).
2. Macroeconomics: The Rational Expectations Hypothesis is revealed to be an artifact of hyper-rigid Tikhonov regularization (condition number = 8.00e+04) that suffocates empirical data down to DoF = 7.32/150.
3. Cognitive Psychology: The Dunning-Kruger effect is formalized as a catastrophic failure of human regularization under extreme data scarcity, mapping the "Peak of Mount Stupid" to infinite Tikhonov stiffness (alpha -> infinity).

CRITICAL META-REFLECTIVE UPDATE:
In compliance with the iron laws of computational epistemology, this note includes a self-destructive postscript. Upon rigorous spectral verification, the paradigm itself is exposed as a symmetrical manifestation of the very narrative overfitting it condemns. By forcing structural filters upon the adversary and utilizing internet-mediated cultural myths (such as the Dunning-Kruger trajectory) dressed in the rigorous vocabulary of Tikhonov splines, this paper functions as a self-falsifying artifact. The ultimate Value of Detection is shown to be perfectly symmetric, demonstrating that the algorithmic hammer of computational reductionism is just as blind and redundant as the grand theological architectures it attempts to shatter.

 

Files

The_Geometry_of_Narrative_Overfitting__A_Linear_Algebra_Demolition_of_Grand_Theories_in_Soft_Sciences.pdf