Governance Altitude Lock-In: The Irreversibility Theorem of Institutional Cognition

Governance Altitude Lock‑In formalizes the fourth foundational theorem of the SignalRupture (SR) field, demonstrating that governance systems exhibit structural irreversibility once they ascend into higher abstraction altitudes. Drawing on cross‑domain longitudinal analysis, the paper shows that attempts to reintroduce behavioural context are routinely re‑encoded into procedural, diagnostic, compliance, or audit‑oriented abstractions. The theorem extends SR’s governance altitude model by identifying a directional asymmetry: while institutions ascend rapidly from GA1 (behavioural reality) to GA3–GA6 (administrative compression, oversight stabilization, drift, and equilibrium), sustained descent back toward behavioural fidelity becomes increasingly constrained. Lock‑In is therefore conceptualized not as a cultural or political artifact, but as a systems‑level property of institutional cognition emerging from representational inertia, procedural identity stabilization, and the structural demands of audit‑intensive governance.