Canonical Definitions

Introduction

This page defines the Transformation Management Institute’s canonical scientific terms. These definitions establish the shared vocabulary required to analyze interpretation, meaning, governance, and temporal stability as system phenomena rather than psychological, cultural, or rhetorical ones.

Each featured term names a distinct structural condition used across the Institute’s research programs, monographs, and professional standards. Supporting mechanisms, dynamics, forces, tests, variables, and failure classifications are defined within the relevant definition pages and scientific publications.

I. System Foundations

System

An admissible unit of analysis under a declared boundary, membership condition, operating constraints, and evaluation window.
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Constraint-Governed State Resolution (CGSR)

The structural process by which an admissible system resolves multiple possible states to a single governing state under constraint, without implying interpretation, meaning, authority, or obligation.
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Meaning

Action relevance: what a signal counts as for constraining what the system does next under declared conditions.
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Meaning System

A bounded environment in which interpretation governs coordinated action over time through reference conditions, pathways, and correction capacity.
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II. Interpretive Process

Interpretation

The system-level process by which signals are evaluated against declared reference conditions and mapped to candidate meanings under constraint.
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Interpretive Jurisdiction

The condition that determines whose interpretation can bind within a declared system. Jurisdiction is determined by System Existence and Truth Fidelity (T).
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Binding

The threshold within an interpretive event at which an interpretation becomes action-governing. Binding does not imply event closure or persistence.
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Action-Governing Meaning (AGM)

The post-binding state in which meaning constrains response selection within an active interpretive event.
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III. Governance Regimes

Meaning Regimes (PCMR / DMR)

The authorization condition under which meaning governs action.

• Post-Closure Meaning Regime (PCMR): meaning governing under legitimate authority.

• De Facto Meaning Regime (DMR): meaning governing without legitimate authority.

Meaning regimes are operative at binding and are not produced by crystallization.
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IV. Temporal Stability

Drift

The post-crystallization rate of inconsistency accumulation in a governing baseline across time.
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Action Determinacy Loss (ADL)

The threshold at which an existing crystallized governing baseline can no longer deterministically route response selection relative to the reference conditions treated as in force, reactivating interpretive jurisdiction and initiating a new interpretive event.
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Notes on Use

This page functions as the Institute’s authoritative routing map. Supporting constructs—including interpretive dynamics, constraint dominance, transition drivers (β₆) and stabilizers (γ₆), determinacy conditions, response routing, Event Closure State, crystallization and crystallization outcomes, de jure conditions, interpretive variables (T, P, C, D, A), and failure classifications—are defined within the relevant definition pages and scientific monographs.