Coupling

1. Canonical Definition

Coupling is the dependency relationship between meaning-systems through which interpretive conditions, constraints, and drift pressures are imported across boundaries.

Within Meaning System Science, coupling explains why interpretive stability or instability is often co-produced across interfaces rather than generated locally within a single system. Coupling can transmit misaligned reference conditions, conflicting signals, structural incoherence, and unresolved inconsistencies, changing the drift rate and stability profile of dependent systems.

2. Featured Lineage: Foundational Thinkers

Charles Perrow — Normal Accidents (1984)

Distinguished tight and complex coupling as structural conditions that amplify failure propagation; MSS extends this by treating coupling as a pathway for importing drift pressure and interpretive instability.

Karl Weick — “Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems” (1976)

Described how organizational units can remain partially independent while still influencing outcomes; MSS adapts this by modeling how loosely coupled meaning-systems can maintain local stability while producing cross-boundary interpretive variance.

3. Plainly

Coupling is how one meaning-system affects another through dependency.

When systems are coupled, instability can move across the interface. A local team can experience rising drift because upstream systems import contradictory baselines, signals, or constraints.

4. Scientific Role in Meaning System Science

Coupling provides the boundary and interface logic required for multi-scale analysis. It explains:

  • how instability propagates across dependencies,

  • why local repairs fail when instability is imported, and

  • how meaning topology changes when interfaces transmit incompatible constraints.

Coupling is a core concept for diagnosing proportional instability in real environments.

5. Relationship to the Variables (T, P, C, D, A)

T — Truth Fidelity: Coupling can import conflicting reference conditions and weaken cross-boundary fidelity.

P — Signal Alignment: Coupling can transmit competing authority signals and create misalignment between systems.

C — Structural Coherence: Coupling can introduce pathway discontinuities and unclear ownership across interfaces.

D — Drift: Coupling can import unresolved inconsistencies, increasing drift rate locally without local origin.

A — Affective Regulation: Coupling can increase interpretive load, consuming regulatory bandwidth and degrading correction capacity.

6. Relationship to the First Law of Moral Proportion

L = (T × P × C) ÷ D

Coupling changes proportional conditions by altering one or more terms in the law through imported pressures.

A meaning-system may appear stable internally while legitimacy decreases due to increasing drift rate or weakened stabilizers introduced through dependencies.

7. Application in Transformation Science

Transformation Science uses coupling analysis to:

  • separate local instability from imported instability,

  • model interface effects on drift rate and legitimacy trends, and

  • identify when reconfiguration must address dependency structure rather than internal messaging or incentives.

8. Application in Transformation Management

Practitioners use coupling to:

  • declare dependency interfaces within scope,

  • design governance controls at boundaries (definitions, decision rights, correction pathways), and

  • prevent drift import by aligning reference conditions and constraints across systems.

Coupling analysis is required for accurate diagnosis in multi-team and multi-institution settings.

9. Example Failure Modes

  • Upstream metric definitions change without propagation rules, importing constraint failure downstream.

  • Multiple authorities issue incompatible signals across an interface, lowering alignment.

  • Correction ownership across systems is unclear, producing closure failure at boundaries.

  • Unresolved contradictions recur across handoffs, increasing drift rate despite local effort.

10. Canonical Cross-References

Meaning-System • Interpretation • Meaning System Science • Physics of Becoming • First Law of Moral Proportion • Meaning Topology • Closure Failure • Constraint Failure • Drift (D) • Structural Coherence (C) • Signal Alignment (P) • Truth Fidelity (T) • Affective Regulation (A) • Drift Catalysts (β₆) • Coherence Regulators (γ₆) • Meaning-System Governance • Transformation Science • Transformation Management • LDP-1.0