Adaptation
The process by which agents or information systems modify their structure or behavior in response to environmental changes, enabling improved survival, persistence, or propagation within their operational context.
Adaptive Stabilization
The capacity of an information system to maintain stability and persistence not by rigidly resisting change, but by dynamically evolving its content, transmission methods, and institutional support structures in response to environmental pressures and opportunities. This allows the system to retain its core identity while ensuring ongoing relevance and effectiveness. (See also: Maladaptive Rigidity)
Agency
The capacity for systems to exhibit goal-directed behavior, environmental responsiveness, and autonomous organization of matter/energy/information patterns. Agency exists on a continuous spectrum from simple molecular selectivity to sophisticated self-reflective behavior, encompassing both organizational agency (structural influence through energetic favorability and pattern stabilization) and semantic agency (meaning-making through autopoietic self-organization). The Brain from Brane framework recognizes agency as a fundamental property of organized systems, measurable through ACAP protocols across all scales of reality.
Agent
A system capable of recursive process optimization, goal pursuit, and environmental responsiveness as measured through ACAP dimensional analysis. Agents exist on a complexity spectrum from simple reactive systems to sophisticated Bio-Informational Complexes with full semantic agency capabilities.
Agent Complexity Assessment Protocol (ACAP)
A five-dimensional measurement framework for systematically assessing agent capabilities: (1) Adaptive Response Sophistication, (2) Goal Hierarchy Complexity, (3) Environmental Model Depth, (4) Self-Reflection Capacity, and (5) Behavioral Autonomy. ACAP provides objective criteria for distinguishing simple reactive systems from sophisticated agents with semantic agency.
Agent-Relative
Information or meaning that exists only in relation to a specific agent's perspective, capabilities, and organizational needs, rather than having objective existence independent of interpreting agents.
Algorithmic Organizational Templates
Computational information systems that function as organizational information patterns to structure digital information environments and mediate interactions between information systems and hosts. These templates, exemplified by social media algorithms and search engines, achieve influence through automated compatibility matching and preference optimization rather than semantic meaning-making. They represent a novel form of organizational agency operating through technological infrastructure to create personalized information landscapes that shape host behavior and attention patterns.
Algorithms
Computational procedures or rule-based systems that process information through systematic operations, representing organizational templates that guide mechanical execution with precise repetition and controlled variation.
Artificial Intelligence
Computational systems designed to simulate or replicate aspects of intelligent behavior, representing a form of agent that processes information through algorithmic rather than biological substrates.
Autocatalytic
Self-reinforcing processes where the products of a reaction catalyze the same reaction, creating positive feedback loops that accelerate development and enable autonomous organization and growth.
Autopoietic
Self-producing and self-maintaining organizational systems that actively maintain their identity through continuous regeneration of their components while preserving their essential organizational structure.