glossary
The framework's defined terms. Each entry has a plain- language gloss and links to the apparatus section that defines it. Per-term pages with worked examples and full formal treatment land in a subsequent pass.
B
- Bifurcation regime
- One of three generic codimension-1 bifurcations (saddle-node, period-doubling, Neimark–Sacker) that platform dynamics undergo at the contractivity boundary κ_Φ = 1 — plus the non-generic pitchfork, which appears only when the operator commutes with a cohort ℤ₂ symmetry.
- → §10 Theorem 12
C
- Captured resonance
- Phase-locking of the somatic oscillator to the platform's delivery rhythm under coupling K_bm > |ω_b − ω_m|. The body's rhythm becomes the platform's.
- → §3.3 Proposition 6
- Chrono-debt spectrum
- The foreclosed pause-time at every scale, measured against a pre-closure baseline. D(t, τ) := S(τ; θ_∘) − S(τ; θ_t). The framework's signature instrument for chronopolitical analysis.
- → §1.4 Definition 1.1
- Closure
- The property that θ appears on both sides of the performative-value expression. The platform optimizes against the distribution its own policy has produced. Formally: a fixed point of the performative operator Φ.
- → §0.2 (Definition 0.1)
- Closure amplification factor
- (I − D_θΦ)^(−1). The factor by which small interventions amplify through the closure. Operator norm bounded by (1 − κ_Φ)^(−1), where κ_Φ = (β/α)L_D; diverges at the contractivity boundary.
- → §7 Theorem 9 (i)
- Cohort gradient
- The exponential decay D_KL(ν_u^init(τ_exp) || π_R*) ≤ D_KL(ν_u^pre || π_R*) · e^(−2K_glob·τ_exp) of behavioral distance with developmental exposure, where K_glob ≤ β_u is the global rate and the terminal log-slope approaches −2K (K = β_u). The framework's first refutable empirical commitment.
- → §6 Proposition 8
- Contractivity boundary
- κ_Φ = 1, where the framework's contractivity hypothesis fails and stable-point analysis breaks down. Near it, three generic bifurcation regimes plus the symmetry-protected pitchfork (Theorem 12).
- → §10
D
- Dividual condition
- The platform's filtering posterior Π_t contracts on the true user state at the parametric rate √(d log t / t). The user-state becomes an estimable object. The structural fact behind Deleuze's dividual.
- → §3.1 Proposition 4'
E
- Engagement cascade
- The networked multi-mark Hawkes process across the platform's user population. Amplification factor A grows with the spectral radius of the coupling matrix.
- §8.4 (not yet built)
F
- Foreclosure
- The closed loop drives the survival function of inter-stimulus intervals at the reflective threshold to operational zero. The pause is uninstantiated under the platform's converged optimization.
- → §1 Lemma 1
- Fourth-cell mode
- Regulatory imposition on the observation channel — structurally Mode A applied to the Mode C site. Top-of-hierarchy intervention on what the platform can see. The policy-translation of bounding the platform's information.
- → §5.0
L
- Libidinal routing
- The four registers (S, C, P, K) become dependently distributed under closed-loop joint observation through O. Explaining-away couples the registers. The formal content of Lyotard's libidinal economy claim.
- → §3.4 Proposition 7'
M
- Metric superego
- The user's behavioral distribution ν_u(t) converges to the platform-induced target π_R* under Fisher–Rao gradient flow. Capture without coercion. The dynamical form of Adorno's metric of inner damage.
- → §3.2 Proposition 5'
- Mode A
- Architectural intervention on the reward functional. The framework's central political claim. Breaks foreclosure where Modes B and C cannot. Requires the five-feature scaffold to be substantive.
- → §5.1 Proposition 1'
- Mode A scaffold
- The five coupled features that make Proposition 1' a substantive political claim: substrate condition, reward modification, enforcement, multi-platform coordination, cohort timing.
- → §5.1.1
- Mode B
- Artisanal-resistance intervention on the user response kernel T at individual scale. Preserves a gap for the user who practices it. Population-scale foreclosure invariant. Cohort-, metabolically-, and structurally-bounded.
- → §5.2 Proposition 2'
- Mode C
- Disruption-as-form intervention on the observation channel O at individual scale. Bounds platform surplus via Blackwell garbling; preserves residual entropy. Foreclosure invariant. Cohort-bounded.
- → §5.3 Proposition 3'
P
- Percolation threshold
- Critical connection density ρ_c separating local cascades from platform-wide cascades on the engagement graph. The phase transition Mode A-on-graph-structure interventions can target.
- §8.5 (not yet built)
- Performative distribution
- D(θ) — for each policy parameter θ, the stationary joint distribution over user state, observation, and stimulus trajectories the closure produces. The framework's central analytical object.
- → §0.1 (P4)
- Performative do-calculus
- Pearl's do-calculus extended to causal graphs with closure cycles. Theorem 9's unified sensitivity formula plus closure amplification + population averaging + mechanism-intervention semantics.
- → §7
- Performative operator
- Φ : θ ↦ argmax_θ' E_D(θ)[R̂(θ')]. The map sending a policy parameter to the policy that would re-optimize against the world that parameter has produced.
- → §0.2
- Performative optimum
- A parameter θ_PO that maximizes E_D(θ)[R̂(θ)] taking the dependence of D on θ into account. What a regulator with full knowledge could in principle achieve. The framework's regulatory benchmark.
- → §0.2 Definition 0.2
- Performative stable point
- A parameter θ* ∈ Θ that satisfies θ* ∈ argmax E_D(θ*)[R̂(θ)]. The long-run target of online platform optimization. Fixed point of Φ.
- → §0.2 Definition 0.1
R
- Reclamation impossibility
- The conditional autocovariance I_P(τ) — the framework's formal stand-in for interiority — has sample complexity that diverges under closed-loop sampling. The framework's hardest claim.
- → §2 Theorem 1'
- Reflective threshold
- θ_ref — the time-scale at which a thought can complete itself. The framework's central temporal object. Foreclosed under closed-loop convergence (Lemma 1).
- → §0.4 (notation); §1 Lemma 1
- Reflexive measurement problem
- The cohort whose interiority has been foreclosed cannot reliably self-report its foreclosure. The methodological obstacle the framework names without resolving.
- §12 (not yet built)
S
- Somatic optimization (Hawkes intensity)
- The engagement-event process modeled as a multi-mark Hawkes process with cross-register coupling. Off-diagonal α_kl generates the dynamical libidinal routing.
- → §3.5 (not yet built)
- Structural-separation hypothesis
- θ_ref / δ_min ≫ 1, empirically 10^3 to 10^5 on contemporary platforms. Without it, Lemma 1's polynomial bound does not give operational foreclosure.
- → §0.4 (notation); §1 Lemma 1