From Phase Transitions to Generative Ontology: The PSRT v2.0 Framework for Emergent Intelligence

This paper presents PSRT v2.0 (Process–Structure–Recursion Theory), a fully integrated generative ontology of intelligence that subsumes and extends the earlier Phase Transition of Intelligence (PTI v1.1) framework. While PTI described intelligence as a sequence of discontinuous phase transitions—semantic, cognitive, and socio-technical—PSRT v2.0 demonstrates that such transitions arise from a deeper tri-axial structure expressed by the identity: PSRT = PSTR(UTI, PTI, HPE). Here, UTI (Universal Topological Invariance) identifies horizontal structural patterns recurrent across cognitive, cultural, and systemic scales; PTI (Platonic Thought Infrastructure) models the vertical transformations of intelligence through abrupt reorganizations of abstraction and coherence; and HPE (Hybrid Process Ecology) captures the multi-agent, multi-scale ecological dynamics through which human minds, artificial systems, and institutions co-evolve. These three axes are unified by PSTR, the generative sequence Process → Structure → Recursion, which explains how meaning, cognition, and civilizational order emerge and self-reconstruct. By embedding phase transitions within this broader ontological field, PSRT v2.0 provides a unified account of emergent intelligence, structural stability, and recursive meaning formation. The framework yields philosophical and practical implications for AI alignment, collective intelligence, epistemic governance, and the ontology of self-modifying agents, offering a coherent structure for understanding how biological, artificial, and civilizational intelligences evolve together.