Finding Sense in our World of Chaos
and Restoring the Balance
Glossary
The meanings of terms used in the book.
- adaptive cycle
- The adaptive cycle is a description of ecosystem development and adaptation in terms of four progressing and repeating phases of reorganisation, rapid growth, conservation and release
- aerobic
- Aerobic refers to a means of respiration that release energy from glucose using oxygen while producing carbon dioxide
- anoxygenic
- Anoxygenic relates to a chemical process that does not produce free oxygen.
- Apes
- Apes is a branch of the order of primates that includes gorillas, gibbons, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans.
- chemosynthesis
- Chemosynthesis is a means by which organisms converting carbon dioxide and methane into organic matter using hydrogen, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia or ferrous ions as the energy source.
- complex adaptive system
- Complex adaptive systems emerge spontaneously in open dynamic environments, building structures of organisation and control through trial and error learning from the bottom up. Key features are their “clumpy” nature, their self-regulation, their adaptability, their unpredictability, and their ability to acquire unforeseeable emergent properties.
- cyanobacteria
- Cyanobacteria are bacteria able to obtain biological energy through oxygenic photosynthesis
- Entropic decay
- Entropic decay, otherwise referred to as entropy production, refers to the reduction in energyʼs concentratedness as it spreads to become more diffuse.
- Entropy
- Entropy is the amount of diffuseness created as energy spreads.
- eukaryote
- A eukaryote cell is one that possesses a clearly defined nucleus. It is the cell from which all animal and plant life originated.
- exergy.
- Exergy refers to the potential that energy has to do useful work.
- Hominin
- Hominins are members of the primate family Hominidae of which humans are the only surviving member.
- MEPP
- Maximum Entropy Production Principle: the universal tendency for open systems, that exist far from thermodynamic equilibrium, to increase their rate of entropy production up to the maximum rate the environment can sustain. See the section The Goodness Principle in chapter 4.
- MSPP
- Maximum Sustainable Productivity Principle: the universal tendency for open systems, that exist far from thermodynamic equilibrium, to increase their productivity up to the maximum rate the environment can sustain. (An alternative phrasing of the Maximum Entropy Production Principle or MEPP). See the section The Goodness Principle in chapter 4.
- Northern Levant
- Northern Levant is a historical term for the region that today comprises Lebanon, most of Syria, northern Iraq and south each Turkey.
- oxygenic
- Oxygenic relates to a chemical process that does produce free oxygen
- panarchy
- A panarchy is a conceptual structure that illustrates the relationships between an environmentʼs adaptive cycles. Grouped according to their diminishing size it enables the dynamic relationships between them to be conceived and explained.
- photosynthesis
- Photosynthesis is a means by which organisms converts light energy into chemical energy that can be stored in organic compounds.
- physical grooming
- The word grooming is used here in its primatological sense of the gentle and persistent pinching, scratching and cleaning of skin and hair that is regularly engaged in by primates.
- Primates
- Primates is an order of mammal that includes monkeys, lemurs and apes, including humans.
- recursive self-improvement
- the envisaged ability of Artificial Intelligent agents to enhance their functioning without human interaction resulting in accelerating, and almost certainly uncontrollable, capabilities.