Description
This monograph develops Cognitive Field Theory (CFT), a geometric framework in which decision, belief, learning, and ideology are modeled as dynamics on constrained probabilistic fields. The central claim is that classical rationality fails not because humans are irrational, but because cognition operates in curved energy landscapes shaped by inequality and constraint. We introduce cognitive enthalpy, as the correct energetic object for embedded agents, where subjective valuation is inseparable from cognitive and social pressures acting over configurational volumes. Entropy quantifies exploratory freedom, while behavior emerges from the minimization of cognitive free energy. The theory formulates a master equation for cognitive dynamics and derives a Raychaudhuri-type focusing equation on probability manifolds, identifying enthalpy curvature as the source of belief convergence, rigidity, and collapse. Inequality is reinterpreted geometrically: the Gini index appears as a shadow of curvature, and its scale dependence is captured by a renormalization flow. Discrete reinforcement and memory processes are unified through urn dynamics (S-theory),revealing winner-take-all outcomes as positive-curvature phases.