A Preliminary Glossary ...Physics of Natural Time
Philip F. Henshaw.....( in progress) NO FRAMES

 
Sections:  
Natural Time
  • The physical subject, the continual apparently simultaneous accumulation of change whereever nature is present. 
  •  ..see natural dimension
Numeric Time
  • A linear measure, an accounting system for relating recorded or expected events in a table or equation, a constructed image of the relationships between preceeding and following things. 
  •  ..see numerical dimension
Open System 
  • Relying on indirect exchange through an independent medium, such as air or water, a marketplace or other environment
  • Organizational wholes composed of independent parts linked by reservoirs of factors which are byproducts for some and resources for others.
  • The model of 'unwitting' colaboration, characterized by free exchange, evolving behavior and resillience.
    		•
    Closed System
  • Relying on direct exchange from one dependent part to another, a machine
  • Organizational wholes with directly connected dependent parts, linked by exchange without intermediary
  • The model of exclusive connection, characterized by linear chains of direct effect, efficiency and inflexibility
    		•
    Levels of Organization
  • Hierarchy of systems:  ecology, population, organism, organ, cell,  membrane, organelle and DNA;  material, molecule, atom, particle; lightening, current, charge.
  • Levels distinguished by behavior on one level being unrelated (random) with respect to behavior on another.
  • The separation that connects.  Links between systems on different levels mediated by intimate separation; organisms-ecology, nerves-synapse, organisms-sex, cells-blood,  molecular bonds, orbitals
    		•
    Positive feedback
    • excitation of locally autonomous process. 
    • An observed, a direct reference to the central mechanism of physical causation, i.e. a primary referential meaning, not a metaphor or modifier 
    • also the pathways for same
    • modeled with positive exponents 
    • modeled with open learning systems
    Negative feedback
    • calming of locally autonomous process.
    • An observed, a direct reference to the central mechanism of physical causation, i.e. a primary referential meaning, not a metaphor or modifier 
    • also the pathways for same
    • modeled with negative exponent
    • modeled with open learning systems
    image
    • A projection of a thing, a correllary, a representation
    • a shadow of the original not including the animating context which enabled the original to develop.
    thing
    • An observed, as differentiated from a represented subject. 
    • The physical existance of images is less the concern than the difference between the subject referred to, beyond emagination, and the image through which we refer to it.
    whole event
    • an observed whole with associated identifiable parts
    • a complete locally independent occurance from beginning to end including the organizational development phases of growth, climax, disordering and decay
    Natural dimension
    • The profiles of behavior observable as useful profiles of description or prediction, any useas arise in the local nucleation of events
    • The underlying physical property which numerical dimensions exploite, which may or may not have properties such as apparent orthogonality and sufficiency, i.e. volume as 3 spatial dimensions is one natural dimension
    Numeric dimension
    • Any useful linear sequence projection, profile or perspective, including those of geometries and the mappings between systems of equations or classes of theory.  A plane of useful description kept separate from others.

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