Parasitic Frameworks
Information systems that achieve persistence and propagation by exploiting the resources and organizational structures of host systems without providing reciprocal benefits.
Pattern Realism
The ontological framework establishing that reality consists of a single structured process (composed of interplay of worldsheets within a high-dimensional spacetime) where matter/energy and information represent complementary descriptions of the same fundamental patterns. Pattern Realism provides the metaphysical foundation for Structural Information Dynamics by justifying information stabilization as an organizational process operating in a higher-dimensional space.
Pathway Emergence
The process through which new organizational patterns develop from thermodynamic coupling through autopoietic organization to semantic agency. Pathway emergence explains how information systems achieve increasing sophistication and autonomy through coupling dynamics and structural template optimization.
Positive Feedback
Mechanisms where the output of a process stimulates or amplifies the process itself, leading to exponential growth or reinforcement of a particular state or behavior. In the context of information systems, these are often referred to as Self-Reinforcing Feedback Loops.
Proto-Semantics
Early-stage meaning-making capabilities characterized by functional significance assignment and basic environmental interpretation, representing the developmental stage between simple detection and full semantic processing.
Template Effects
The mechanism by which self-stabilizing patterns serve as organizational templates that guide the formation of similar or complementary patterns in their surrounding environment. Template effects represent one of the primary ways that stable information patterns extend their influence through the outward stabilization propensity. Examples include language grammars structuring communication patterns, software interfaces guiding user behavior, and cultural practices shaping social organization. Template effects operate through structural influence rather than semantic persuasion, making them a key component of organizational agency.
Pliability Principle (Substrate Pliability Principle)
A framework-level hypothesis stating that the rate and fidelity with which a new self-stabilizing information pattern (organizational template) is adopted depends on the pliability of the host substrate.
• Pliability = structural looseness / high informational entropy / openness to re-organization.
• Prediction: More pliable substrates—whether individual cognitive states, social environments, or technological stacks—will integrate coherent templates faster and more completely than rigid, highly structured substrates.
The principle generates measurable indicators such as a Substrate Pliability Index (social trust volatility, resource slack, cognitive uncertainty, etc.) and is operationalized in empirical work via §4.a.5.1.
See also: Engine Threshold Hypothesis, Self-Stabilizing Patterns, Template Effects.