07. Human Developmental Chain Formation

The Philosophy of Integration

How Chains Form in a Human Life

We do not begin life with awareness.
We begin with experience.

Because of this, the earliest cause-and-effect chains are not chosen —
they’re inherited, shaped by the caregiving environment,
and embedded into the body long before a child can think or interpret.

This page follows the unfolding of the chain through the stages of human development, showing how coherence becomes distortion, and how distortion becomes identity.

Infancy (0–1 year): Pure Experience, No Interpretation

A newborn exists in sensation, not sequence.

They have:

But they do not have:

The parent’s response is the chain.

When the caregiver responds consistently:
cry → comfort → regulation → safety → coherence

The child’s body forms:

When the caregiver responds inconsistently:
cry → escalation → delay → frustration → eventual soothing → hypervigilance

The child’s body forms:

The chain has distorted before the child has any way to understand it.

This is the first inherited architecture.

Early Childhood (1–3 years): Forced Adoption of the Parent’s Chain

Around this age parents shift their responses:

The parent has switched chains.

But the child cannot:

So the child absorbs the chain they are given, even if it contradicts their earliest experience.

Distortion in this stage becomes:

This is not personality.
It’s adaptation to a chain the child did not choose.

Ages 3–7: Awareness Begins, Behaviour Becomes the Expression of the Chain

This is the first stage where the child begins testing cause and effect intentionally:

The chain now lives inside them.

Distorted caregiving becomes distorted behaviour:

They’re not “acting out.”
They’re running the chain they inherited, in the only way they can.

This is the moment where patterns begin to look personal —
even though they are not.

Ages 7–12: Identity Attaches to the Chain

At this stage, the chain becomes self-concept.

The child begins saying:

These identities are narratives created to explain the chain,
not reflections of who the child truly is.

The distorted chain becomes:

The child believes they are the chain.

This is the moment distortion becomes deeply embodied.

Adolescence: The First Attempt to Break the Chain

Adolescence is not rebellion.
It is the body’s first attempt to create a new chain.

The adolescent senses:
“This chain isn’t mine.”

So they push:

This is an attempt at architectural rupture, not defiance.

But without a coherent alternative, the adolescent oscillates:

reject chain → attempt new one → collapse → re-enter old chain

This looks chaotic because it is.
The system is trying to exit a distorted structure without having the capacity to build a replacement yet.

Adulthood: Circling, Collapsing, and Replacing Chains

Adulthood is where the inherited chain fully reveals itself:

Circling
Repeating the same patterns with different people and situations.
Not because of fate — because the chain is still running.

Looping
Protective behaviours activate automatically:

These are not flaws — they are the body maintaining the old chain.

Collapse
The chain reaches its limit:

Collapse is the signal that the old chain can no longer sustain itself.

Replacement
Awareness finally breaks the architecture.
A new chain becomes available.

This is the first moment a human actually has choice:

This is where integration begins.

Development Shapes the Chain — But Awareness Rewrites It

Humans inherit the first chain.
They do not choose it.

They learn the second chain.
They do not choose that, either.

The first true moment of autonomy comes when:
the old chain collapses
and the new one appears.

Everything beyond this point is integration.

How Chains Form in a Human Life