Paton System — Cognitive Clarifications (Series III)

This paper presents the third series of cognitive clarifications within the Paton System, focusing on system stability, drift, and structural integrity over time. It extends the operational interpretation of admissibility by examining how systems persist, distort, and collapse under recursive continuation and constraint accumulation. The work formalises key conditions including drift within admissible regions, false stability beyond constraint compatibility, structural memory and path dependence, and the distinction between local validity and global invalidity. Model failure is defined as over-extension beyond admissible range rather than incorrect formulation. Structural saturation is identified as a limit where added complexity reduces viability. Stability is not static equilibrium but continued admissibility under constraint, while collapse is the structural realisation of exceeded compatibility, consistent with the Constraint–Incompatibility Collapse Law (CICL). This paper positions stability, drift, and collapse within the Tier-5 to Tier-6 transition of the Paton System.