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Technical Terminology and Custom Coinages

• Chaos

A state of disorganization, equivalent to maximum Entropy.

• Consciousness

A holistic, emergent property of a physical body. It is the ability of complex physical systems to detect and process the meta-physical information content of other material systems. The product of that goal-directed process is knowing and awareness.

• Cybernetics

Cybernetic Theory studies the information flows, and the command & control functions of organized systems.

•  Emergence

A natural creative function of evolution.  Refers to the sudden appearance of novel properties of a System that cannot be predicted from properties of components that make-up the system.

• Enformationism

A new post-postmodern scientific/philosophical paradigm proposed to supersede the obsolete modernist worldview of Materialism / Determinism. It proposes that matter and energy are essentially special forms of Generic Information.

• Enformy

The organizing principle of the universe. A postulated natural force/principle that opposes Entropy in that it causes an evolutionary tendency toward organization, and away from randomness. ~ See In-Form-Action.

• Entropy

A measure of disorder in a system, such as diffusion in a gas, and uncertainty in message transmission.  Thermodynamic Entropy defines the weakening of energy as the information content becomes more diffuse and uncertain. Maximum Entropy is chaotic. ~ See Enformy.

• Evolution

Originally, the process of unrolling a document like a scroll, gradually revealing the information inscribed thereon. Darwinian evolution, by natural selection allows novel entities to emerge. Genetic evolution, by transmission of information, allows old information to be preserved over many generations. Memetic evolution, by cultural selection, preserves old ideas, but permits novel ideas to emerge.

• Exergy

A quantitative measure (value) of the quality of energy. The quality being scaled is the information/organization of a specific chunk of energy. The Laws of Thermodynamics suggest that energy can be compressed or condensed so that it contains more information per unit volume. In this thesis, Enformy or In-Form-Action is the ability of natural processes to compress energy into a smaller “space”, thereby causing a useful or meaningful form to emerge.

• Holism

The opposite of Reductionism. The whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. A functional sub-component of a whole system or organism is called a Holon.

• Idealism

An ancient philosophical doctrine, associated with Plato, which held that the ultimate substance of the world consists of abstract ideas (forms) rather than physical matter (things). Opposite to Materialism.

• Ideality

The part of ultimate Reality that we can’t perceive with our physical senses; we can only conceive it with the mind’s eye. ~ See Meta-physics.

• In-Form-Action

A coined term referring to an ultimate principle in the universe, which functions as the “formal” cause of all physical and meta-physical things. The creative act of En-formation, causes something new to emerge from pre-existing, unformed Chaos. ~ See Enformy. ~ See Note.

• Information

A quality of physical patterns and processes that stimulates meaning to emerge in a mind.  Since it has few directly perceivable qualities itself, generic information is usually defined in terms of its context or container. Unlike colorless, odorless, and formless water though, Information gives physical form to whatever contains it. In the Enformationism thesis it is the single Substance of the whole World.

Words defined in this list are highlighted in the main text as follows : Emergence. Click the highlighted term to go directly to the list of technical terms and coinages for a brief description of how the word is used in this thesis.