Regenerative Vocabulary

Directory

Compiled by Tom Atlee [1]:

Antifragility – a property of systems in which they increase in capability to thrive as a result of – not in spite of – stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures.

Autopoiesis – the self-organizing dynamic through which the constituents of an organism or system interact to continuously regenerate and realize the relations and processes that produced them.

Co-incarnation – the reality through which all things bring other things into existence.

Fractality – the nature of patterns in which each part has the same character as the whole, with similar patterns recurring at progressively larger or smaller scales.

Holergy – the ways a part is greater than its role in any particular whole, by being a whole in its own right and part of many other wholes. Holergy is the mirror image of synergy (a whole is greater than the sum of its parts).

Holoficiency – efficiency of, by and for the whole – the optimum engagement of all aspects of a whole for the long-term wellbeing of the whole. Holoficiency contrasts with efficiency which tends towards stripping away.

Holon – the essential identity and role of anything considered as both a whole and a part (which every thing already is).

Homeostasis – Any self-regulating process by which a biological or ecological system maintains relative stability or “dynamic equilibrium” in which continuous change occurs yet relatively constant conditions prevail overall.

Interbeing – the existential condition through which all phenomena exist and depend on all other phenomena.

Intercentricity – connection between the essential centers of entities, ideas or phenomena.

Iteration – a dynamic through which the output of one step or stage becomes input for the subsequent step or stage.

Keystone – a central part of a structure or system upon which everything else depends.

Nestedness – the quality of systems or dynamics that contain within them sub-systems or sub-dynamics, generating scaled layers analogous to a Russian Matryoshka wooden doll set of figures that nest one inside another, each smaller than the last. The general concept has many applications, such as climate action and human psychosocial influences.

Niche – the function or position of an organism or population within an ecological community and the associated range of conditions within which it can thrive.

Polycentrality – the phenomenon of having more than one center (of power, structure, information, etc.).

Recursion – a process through which the outcome of a process is put through the same process, usually over and over, producing changing results – or a shape or image which contains self-similar patterns at all scales (like tree branches).

Replenishing the Sources – providing new material or energy to the sources of material or energy you depend on.

Stigmergy – a self-organizing dynamic operating as indirect coordination between agents through meaningful traces left in their shared environment.

Succession – the process through which the diversity of species changes in an ecological community over time, usually as certain species generate environmental conditions that lead them to be replaced by subsequent species.

Symmathesy – mutual learning in context.

Telos – the end, goal, or purpose toward which something tends; sometimes experienced as a ‘pull’ from the future that draws a process toward its fulfillment.

Transcontextuality – the idea that every situation, relationship, or phenomenon exists within multiple contexts simultaneously.

Waste=Food – Waste equals food means every output should serve – and in nature usually does serve – as a productive input for another system.