Author: Vladisav Jovanović
Status: Preprint
Version: v1.0 (Feb 2026)
“Resonance” is widely treated as a marker of truth: an idea “lands,” feels right, fits a person’s identity, or harmonizes with a group’s worldview. I argue that resonance is not evidence. It is an amplitude phenomenon—an increase in subjective certainty that can be produced by narrative fit, social imitation, cadence, or affective regulation. To make this distinction operational, I introduce a quantum-style instrument that separates resonant coherence from contact with constraint. The model represents cognition as a state vector evolving between a Constraint basis (|C⟩) and a Narrative basis (|N⟩). Resonance governs collapse tendency (what a system is likely to accept or commit to), but epistemic integrity depends on binding conditions: constraint-coupling, reversal survival, and repair. The core claim is structural: systems can maximize resonance while minimizing contact, and the result is not merely ordinary error but a regime in which coherence substitutes for reality and certainty becomes cheap.
resonance; epistemic integrity; quantum cognition; coherence; constraint; repair; answerability; narrative possession; structural intelligence