Aging as Cybernetic Attractor Decay: Beyond the Stochastic-Programmed Dichotomy

The debate between stochastic deterioration (Meyer et al., 2025) and programmed senescence perpetuates a false dichotomy dating back to Weismann. The precision of molecular aging clocks and aging reversibility demands a different explanation: aging is neither stochastic wear-and-tear nor genetic programming, but rather cybernetic decay, predictable trajectories emerging as developmental regulatory architectures lose information-processing fidelity. I define biological systems as hierarchical information-processing networks where aging represents computational drift from developmental attractors. Three observations support this framework: (1) site-specific equilibrium states inconsistent with pure stochasticity, (2) developmental network dominance in aging signatures, and (3) rejuvenation restoring regulatory configurations rather than repairing molecular damage. This framework reconciles why aging follows predictable population trajectories despite individual variability (conserved computational architectures), why epigenetic clocks work (measuring attractor drift), and why reprogramming reverses aging (restoring computational precision). It predicts that regulatory network entropy outperforms mutation burden in age prediction, and that interventions restoring information coherence reverse aging clocks more effectively than targeted molecular repair. Under this framework, biological entities function as computers, and aging emerges as a fundamentally reversible and controllable process across both short-term development and long-term evolution.