GLOSSARY

GLOSSARY

a state emptied of preconceived value, use, function, meaning; an extreme state of loss within which choice is unavoidable; a condition of maximum potential, realised fully in the present moment.

the act made necessary by acute awareness of the present moment; involves risk.

CYBERNETICS

a system of thought and action which excludes nothing, does not contain anything or include everything; mind/machine relationships, hence human/extra-human interactions.

a condition of circular repetition, the input-output states of which are self-transforming.

a cybernetic state of free interactions; a community of autonomous performers, continuously re-formed by the independent choice of each; a feedback loop, a recursive mechanism.

the input-output process; the mechanism of self-transformation; the result of dialogue, interaction, choice; a state of unpredictability.

UNIVERSCIENCE

a transdisciplinary field of work and study based on the relationship of cognitive processes to the phenomenology of light; a body of principles relevant to architectrue, based on the interplay of metrical systems defining boundaries of evolving form.

the invention of the world in all the complexity and multiplicity of its phenomena.

ARCHITECTURE

instrument for the invention of knowledge through action; the invention of invention.

DIGITAL COMPUTER

a fast counting machine- nothing more, nothing less.

BIOLOGICAL COMPUTER

the human brain; the most unpredictable, hence most complex computer known.

DETERMINATE FIELD

geometrical field predetermined by a self-consistent set of rules of operation, eg, the Cartesian field.

geometrical field unpredictably determined by the complex flux of conditions within the field, eg, the field of non-linear systems.

LIVING-LABORATORY

architecture for living and working experimentally.

a predetermined vertical chain of authority that works from the top down.

a spontaneous lateral network of autonomous individuals; a system of authority based on the evolving performances of individuals, eg, a cybernetic circus.

an ephemeral, freely-evolving, unpredictable, dynamical four-dimensional pattern.

a description of an experience.

EXISTENTIAL

a principle of thought affirming itself in action; existence confirming itself.

GEOMAGNETIC LIFT

the principle of levitating masses by their interaction with the earth's ambient electromagnetic fields.

CONSTRUCTION

the invention of reality.

a state necessitating the invention of constuction.

OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE

terms of a dualism divorcing experience from reality.

a hierarchical description of reality; preconceived chain of phenomena comnprising a determinate field.

the present feedback mechanism of a phenomenon or construction.

COMMUNICATION

an exchange of knowledge between autonomous individuals.

the essential condition of freedom; organic unity, hence the source of the individual's existential isolation; distinction by virtue of boundary.

free dialogue among autonomous individuals.

INDEGESTIBILITY

resistance to being consumed by a system; a characteristic of freedom.

consequence of the 'second law' of thermodynamics; predicted inevitable loss of energy, individuality, descriptiveness and ability to describe.

'knowledge without interest'; ideas embodied in and transcended by forms.

PHYSICALITY

the state of all present conditions; definition of quantifiable phenomena; matrix of reality.

precisely of the present moment; the space of reality; the field of phenomena bounded by description.

human embodiment of autonomous being; inventor of the world.

state of maximum entropy.

a matrix of distinctions, itself uniquely distinct.

communications with a heterarchy.

communications within a hierarchy.

an intention stated a posteriori to a result of action; an experimental finding.

a system describing precise relationships of action.

the act of inventing.

preconception of present conditions and results; predetermination of the present moment.

PROBABILITY

the phenomenon and spontaneous inevitability.

the free interaction of values.

a system describing an underlying empetus to action.

QUANTUM THEORY

paradox of energy/matter relationships.

QUANTUM MECHANICS

kinematics of ambiguous observed/observer relationships.

RELATIVITY THEORY

the great destroyer of hierarchies; description of the world according to an observer.

the study of being- static and hierarchical.

ONTOGENETICS

the study of becoming, dynamic and heterarchical.

transformation of reality through perception.

a construction free of preconceived value, use or meaning; an element in a heterarch.

heterarchy of freespaces; pattern of urban order based on knowledge and performance; a system opposing mass culture; a subversion of hierarchies.

SELF-REFERENTIALITY

a paradox of the self; phenomenon including its own description of itself; condition of freedom and heterarchy.

CONSUMERISM

a state of becoming limited by the total entropy of a system.

MASS CULTURE

a system diminshing the autonomy of individuals; a state of undifferentiated nature within which the making of distinctions is difficult.

self-cancelling mass political machinations; the necessity of formlessness.

individual resistance to established form.

of the present moment.

matrix of bounding relationships.

the condition of boundaries, perceived as exterior to self.

the condition of boundaries, perceived as interior to self.

action without goal, undertaken for itself.

making marks by a process of mind-hand-eye coordination; an act of building; an action indispensable to architecture.

the essential condition of freedom.