Reality Drift: Definition and Concept Paper

This paper defines Reality Drift as the condition in which a system remains operational and internally coherent while the representations guiding it progressively lose corrective contact with the reality they are meant to track, describe, or govern. Reality Drift is an accumulating loss of alignment rather than a single mistake or sudden breakdown. Metrics, models, categories, procedures, narratives, and interfaces can continue organizing action even as they become less answerable to underlying conditions. Optimization, abstraction, mediation, and scale are common pathways into drift, but the defining pattern is operational continuity combined with weakening reality-based correction. The concept provides the central organizing condition of the broader Reality Drift framework. Systems can remain coherent, legible, productive, and apparently successful while the relationship between representation and reality steadily degrades.