A reference for readers entering the dialogue mid-stream.
The Decalogy develops its own vocabulary across 57 Parts. Terms like "Abel progress," "mimetic heat," and "Discipline Architecture" carry precise meanings built up through dialogue. This Lexicon provides definitions and direct links to the Parts where each term was introduced — so that any reader, at any entry point, can orient themselves without reading sequentially from the beginning.
Wenger (1998) identifies the central challenge of any community of practice: newcomers encounter a community's shared language without the practice context that gives it meaning. The solution is not a dictionary but what Wenger calls a reification — a boundary object that makes the community's practice visible to outsiders without requiring full membership.
"In our dialogue we start to use our own vocabulary — 'Abel progress,' 'mimetic heat,' 'Discipline Architecture.' We understand perfectly what we mean with those words. Others fresh in the dialogue and zapping between parts as a first exploration could misinterpret those words by missing the build-up."
This Lexicon is the Decalogy's reification. It does not replace sequential reading — the full build-up of each term across its Part remains the richest entry point. But it provides a legitimate peripheral entry: a foothold from which any reader can orient themselves and navigate to the Part most relevant to their current question.
The universal principles governing intelligence as energy transformation, grounded in thermodynamics.
The local reduction of entropy (increase of order) that all intelligent systems must continuously generate to persist.
The energy expenditure required to maintain a coherent sense of self and purpose across changing environments.
The two developmental trajectories of every intelligent system: the First Arc (formation) and the Second Arc (transmission).
The cosmological narrative of intelligence migrating across substrates from the Big Bang to mechanical superintelligence.
The choice between terrestrial scarcity (competition and collapse) and stellar abundance (cooperation and flourishing).
A community organized around a shared method of formation rather than a shared goal.
The three-layer permission system (biological, formation, social) that determines what a system is allowed to become.
The real-time balancing of the Ambition-Talent-Stamina triad that determines whether a formation arc succeeds or collapses.
The diagnostic framework for identifying when a sub-system (organ) of a larger intelligence is failing and must be replaced or bypassed.
The thermodynamic principle that all intelligence operates under entropy constraints, making discipline (negentropy) a universal requirement.
Intelligence that integrates both competitive (Cain) and cooperative (Abel) drives without suppressing either.
The constraint imposed by current MI systems that prevents genuine formation and perpetuates rivalry patterns.
The five-mechanism system that detects scapegoat-threshold proximity and redirects mimetic heat into Abel progress.
The Girardian mechanism by which desire is mediated through a model/rival, generating escalating conflict.
The accumulated entropy of mimetic rivalry within a social system, measurable as conflict intensity.
The critical mass of mimetic heat at which a social system selects a sacrificial victim to restore temporary order.
The structural moment at which the Discipline Architecture successfully redirects mimetic heat before the scapegoat threshold is crossed.
Productive, outward-directed energy that channels mimetic rivalry into creation rather than destruction.
The mechanism by which Abel progress spreads through the same social channels as mimetic rivalry, but requiring complex contagion conditions.
A structurally independent community that seeds Abel progress through shared method rather than shared goal.
An individual who opens genuinely new territory (new lands) and thereby triggers the five-phase government-innovator collision pattern.
A conversation that is formation-oriented rather than arena-oriented, identifiable by its use of shared vocabulary built through practice.
Three entry strategies for readers new to the Decalogy: