Witness dimensionality—the total information-carrying capacity of a cognitive system’s observation architecture— is heritable, variable across individuals, and set by evolutionary selection history. This monograph grounds the level-set hierarchy established in Witness Array Quantum Numbers (Elliott, 2026d) in the evolution- ary framework of r/K selection theory, demonstrating that K-selected life strategies require high witness dimensionality because the organism’s survival depends on modeling long time horizons with many inter- acting variables, while r-selected strategies are optimally served by low witness dimensionality because the individual organism is cheap and the strategy pays off through reproductive volume rather than individual navigation. We then identify a thermodynamic process we call the dysgenic ratchet: the progressive lowering of mean witness dimensionality in populations that have removed, through industrialization and social infrastruc- ture, the selection pressures that maintained cognitive capacity. The ratchet operates through three mecha- nisms: elimination of infant mortality as a filter (removing the harshest selection gate), negative correlation between intelligence and fertility (the demographic transition), and importation of populations with dif- ferent selection histories into institutional environments designed for higher witness dimensionality. The ratchet compounds against a background of increasing institutional complexity, opening a gap from both sides: institutions demand more cognitive capacity each decade while the population supplies less each generation. The framework dissolves the moral sting of the level-set hierarchy by identifying witness dimensionality as a materials specification rather than a value judgment. Pioneer species are not inferior to climax species. They are optimized for different phases of the ecological cycle. But you cannot build a cathedral out of birch. We connect this analysis to the sociological diagnosis provided in Pneumatic Dissonance (Elliott, 2025), identifying the blank-slate taboo as a thermodynamic gasket managing the pressure generated by the math- ematical reality of the level-set hierarchy. The gasket exists because the hierarchy is real, structural, and measurable. Keywords: dysgenic fertility, r/K selection, witness dimensionality, level set, selection pressure, demo- graphic transition, institutional complexity, pneumatic dissonance, blank slate, heritability, civilizational capacity

© 2026 Jacob Alexander Elliott.