The Economy of Anticipation: A Unified Predictive Model of Habit Persistence, Relationship Degradation, and Systemic Existential Dissolution

This paper presents a unified, non-sentimental framework that models all continuous human actions through the lens of predictive processing and decision theory. Bypassing anthropomorphic, clinical, and moral biases, we define a cognitive agent as an energy-conserving system that continuously executes behavioral loops based on prior data to maximize subjective utility, which operates as the abstract mathematical currency of neurological reward states. Within this framework, ‘Hope’ is formalized not as an emotional state, but as the sustained elevation of a tra- jectory’s utility-probability vector (P > 0) across multi-temporal horizons. We examine how this predictive matrix sustains localized addictions and strategic so- cial networks (friendships), demonstrating how agents subsidize short-term resource expenditures for long-term contingency returns. Furthermore, we show that exter- nal constraint fails to dissolve behavioral loops if the underlying hope architecture remains intact, whereas the absolute cognitive acceptance of a zero-utility state (P = 0) induces natural structural collapse. Finally, we scale this calculus to pro- vide an entirely objective, value-free formulation of systemic operational shutdown (suicide) as the logically necessary termination of the baseline survival loop when its expected utility is permanently flattened to zero relative to the agent’s internal information matrix.