Glossary
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3-age system: a tripartite archeological sequential periodization of human prehistory and early history, comprising the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Never mind the Wood Age.
3rd party: an individual or group not directly involved in an issue (typically a contention). The 1st party is the initiator. The 2nd party is the object of the 1st party.
A
actuality: the world experienced through the senses. Compare reality.
adaptation (evolutionary biology): the teleological process of adjusting to ecological circumstance.
Age of Discovery (aka Age of Imperialism) (7th–4th century BF): the period that Europeans came to comprehend the vastness of Earth through naval exploration, and to conquer and colonize foreign lands.
agriculture: the cultivation of one life form by another, most commonly referring to growing plants.
albedo: the ratio of light reflected by a surface to that received by it.
altricial: animals that are relatively immature and immobile at birth or hatching and so require parental care. Many mammals are altricial. Contrast precocial.
Anatolia (aka Asia Minor): the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising most of modern-day Turkey. Anatolia is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea to the west. The eastern border of Anatolia was a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea, east of the Armenian highlands.
angiosperm: a plant that seasonally exhibits flowers. Angiosperms arose 245 MBF, incorporating several innovations, including leaves, pollen, flowers, and fruit. A wave of angiosperm radiative speciation began 144 MBF.
animal: a kingdom of eukaryotic heterotrophs. Most animals are motile. Compare plant.
animism: the doctrine that that there is no separation between the physical and spiritual world, and that a vital energetic force is inherent in all of Nature. Compare vitalism.
anthropoid: an apelike primate. Compare hominid, humanoid.
anthropology: the study of humans.
ape (aka great ape): a tailless primate; not a monkey.
Asia: a large landmass continent, bounded by Europe and the Arctic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
atmosphere: the layer of gases that surround a body of sufficient mass. The atmosphere is held in place by the gravity of the body.
auroch: the ancestor of modern domestic cattle.
Australasia: a region of Oceania comprising New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and neighboring islands.
Australopithecus (4.2–1.8 MBF): a relatively long-lived genus of largely vegan hominids with considerable species diversity.
authority (political): an individual or group with the power to force submission from others.
autochthone (aka aborigine, native): an original inhabitant of a region.
autocracy: a state commanded by an autocrat. Contrast democracy.
autocrat (aka dictator, despot): a commander with unlimited authority. Compare ruler, monarch. See commander.
autopoiesis: a dynamic of self-sustaining activity; a system capable of maintaining and reproducing itself. A biological cell sustaining itself is an example of autopoiesis. Compare homeostasis.
autotroph: an organism that makes its own food. Contrast heterotroph.
Axial Age (30th–25th century BF): 2nd-century-BF philosopher Karl Jaspers’ proposal that there was a pivotal age in world history regarding philosophy and religion.
B
baboon: a genus (Papio) of monkeys with strict social dominance hierarchies.
bad (economics): an externality from a good. See good.
belief: a habit of the mind to axiomatically treat ideas as true; confidence in abstractions as real.
BF: before the fall. A reverse chronology, beginning with 0 (zero) from Earther Gregorian calendar year 2100 (the beginning of the 22nd century BF) and running backward in time.
biocide: a chemical agent to kill animals (pesticide), plants (herbicide), or fungi (fungicide).
bioelement: a planetary ecological element. The bioelements include the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biota.
biome: an area where organisms live with similar conditions, both geographically and climatically.
biosphere: the global summation of the Earth’s ecosystems.
biota: the life forms (i.e., organisms and viruses) in an environment.
bird: a feathered, bipedal, egg-laying vertebrate. Birds descended from dinosaurs.
black (sociology): modern vernacular for dark-skinned people; especially in the USA & UK, those with an African heritage. Owing to a legacy of slavery, blacks were subordinates in modern societies where whites were dominant. Contrast white.
bolide: a meteorite; a brighter-than-usual meteor; officially defined from a perspective on Earth as a fireball brighter than any of the planets.
Bronze Age (~5400–3400 BF): the middle period of the 3-age system, noted for the metallurgical production of bronze; the Stone Age preceded, the Iron Age followed.
Byzantine Empire (1770–647 BF): the predominantly Greek-speaking continuation of the eastern Roman Empire until annexed by the Ottomans in 647 BF.
C
capital: financial wealth that can be employed to produce more wealth.
capitalism: a market-based economic system based upon private ownership of resources and their exploitation for exclusive profit. Compare socialism.
carbon (C): the element with atomic number 6; an extremely friendly element, with 4 electrons available to form covalent bonds. Life is based upon molecules made with a carbon backbone.
carbon cycle: the gaseous cycling of carbon exchange among the geosphere (deep Earth), pedosphere (soil), hydrosphere (water bodies), atmosphere, and biosphere (living ecological systems).
Cenozoic (65.5–0 MBF): the geological era from the demise of the dinosaurs to the self-extinction of hominids.
chordate (Chordata phylum): an animal with tadpole characteristics at some developmental stage. Chordates include lancets, tunicates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
clade (biological classification): a group of biological taxa, such as genus, which includes all descendants of a common ancestor.
clan: a group of families or people of common descent. Compare tribe.
climate: a characterization of tropospheric activity in an area over 3 decades, accounting for seasonal variations. The standard of 30 years was often adjusted to suit reportage. Compare weather.
clinker: a kilned then quenched cement product based upon limestone; used to make Portland cement, the common modern cement.
coal: a blackish combustible sedimentary rock from naturally compressed and heated vegetation. Compare petroleum.
Ĉocö: the universal, unified field of Cönsciousness /cöherence which localizes into individualized consciousnesses, minds, and the perception of Nature.
cöherence: the intelligent interaction behind Nature. Like Cönsciousness, cöherence localizes.
Collective: the 99.9+% of modern Earthers who followed their biological urges as natural imperative. The Collective were slaves to their minds, and thereby iğnorant. The Collective cherished emotions and beliefs. As believers in dualism or matterism and in taking existence at face value, the Collective were naïve realists.
command economy: a state-run, organized production and distribution system. Compare market economy, traditional economy.
commander: a controlling authority of a state. See ruler, autocrat, monarch.
commune (politics): a European medieval city-state political regime of oligarchy.
consciousness: the platform for awareness in an individual life constituent, such as a protein, virus, cell, or organism. Compare Cönsciousness.
Cönsciousness: the unified field of consciousness. Cönsciousness naturally localizes into individualized consciousnesses. Compare consciousness.
conspecific: of the same species. Contrast interspecific.
construal: an interpretation.
coremind: fundamental perception. Compare nattermind, willmind.
corporation: an economic group legally authorized to act as an individual.
corvid: a cosmopolitan bird family (the crow family) which had over 120 species during the era of humans.
coronavirus: a virus which may cause a “cold” (upper respiratory tract) disease in humans, so named because of a crown-like protein structure on the surface of the virus. See covid.
corporatism: sociopolitical organization of a society by major corporate interest groups.
covid: the “cold” disease caused by the coronavirus CoV2.
cultivar: a variety of a cultivated plant.
culture: the shared language, customs, beliefs, cuisine, and art of a social group.
D
Dark Ages: the 17th–12th centuries BF in Europe; the early Middle Ages, following the decline of the Roman Empire. The term Dark Ages was generally disparaged by modern historians, owing to its critical overtone. Yet the aptness of its cultural attribution cannot be denied. Italian scholar Francesco Petrarch coined the metaphor in the 770s BF, when writing of the previous historical period: “Amid the errors there shone forth men of genius; no less keen were their eyes, although they were surrounded by darkness and dense gloom.”
democracy: a political system where an electorate elected rulers. An electorate was a select group of voters. The viability of democracy rested upon the assumption that the average voter was sensible enough to select societal commanders. Self-extinction showed that democracy was a failed experiment. Contrast autocracy.
deontology (philosophy): measuring morality by inherent goodness, not result. See moral absolutism. Contrast teleology.
dictator: an autocrat.
dinosaur: a diverse clade of reptiles, excepting birds – which is an arbitrary exclusion, as birds descended from dinosaurs.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid): a complex molecule supposedly employed as a physical template for biomolecular production.
dualism: the metaphysical belief that reality is bifurcated between the physical and the mental. Contrast monism.
dynasty: a succession of monarchs, where the monarch has the power to choose or influence their successor.
E
Earth: the 3rd planet from the Sun; the densest and 5th largest.
Earther: a human on Earth.
ecology: as a subdiscipline of biology focused on patterns of interrelations between life forms (e.g., cells, organisms) and their habitats, including other organisms; more broadly, the relations between bioelements.
economic: the idea that objects and altruistic behaviors are goods and services respectively, as part of a materialist value system.
economic system: an overarching characterization of how an economy works. There are 3 main economic systems: traditional, command, and market. A traditional economy is tribal, with scant surplus. A command economy is a planned economy, typically under centralized control. A market economy is, ostensibly, a disorganized free-for-all centered on trade. See economy.
economy (economics): a societal economic gyre.
ecosystem: the community of biota in a biome, and the abiotic (non-living) elements within the area.
endogamy: mating within one’s clan. Contrast exogamy.
endowment effect (aka divestiture aversion): sentimental attachment to objects above their economic replacement value.
energy (physics): the idea of an immaterial force acting upon or producing matter. Energy is characterized relatively and by type: how it affects matter. Energy manifests only through its effect on matter. Though the foundational construct of existence, energy itself does not exist. As matter is made of energy, the very characterization of energy tidily proves energyism.
energyism: the monistic doctrine that Nature is a figment of the mind. Energyism differentiates between actuality and reality. Whereas actuality is phenomenal (perceived), reality has a noumenal substrate, emergently spawning a shared actuality (showtivity) via a unified Ĉocö. Contrast matterism.
enlightenment: the 1st elevated level of consciousness in which contentment reigns. Compare iğnorance. See unity consciousness.
environment: a designated spatial region or conceptual realm.
eukaryote: an organism with cell structures (organelles) separated by membranes. Multicellular life is eukaryotic. Compare prokaryote.
Eurasia: Earth’s largest landmass in the era of apes, comprising Europe and Asia, including Borneo and other nearby islands. Compare Australasia.
Europe: a continent west of Asia, separated from Asia by the Ural Mountains, and otherwise bounded by the Atlantic and Arctic oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.
eusocial: an animal that has: 1) overlapping generations, 2) cooperative care of the young, and 3) reproductive division of labor. Eusocial animals tend to cooperation generally.
externality (economics): an unintended byproduct of an ecological activity, typically making an economic product. Waste and pollution are exemplary externalities.
evolution (evolutionary biology): the process of adaptation, most apparently seen as a distinctive change across successive generations of a population.
existence: what appears in the mind (perceived) as a material world. See actuality.
exogamy: mating outside of one’s clan. Contrast endogamy.
F
fact: recall of an experienced event.
Fertile Crescent: the geographic area from the upper Nile River in Egypt through the Middle East to the Persian Gulf, including the regions of Mesopotamia and the Levant.
feudalism: a societal system prevalent in medieval Europe, with socioeconomic hierarchy based upon land holding.
feudal: a social control system based on fief; regional authority.
fluid sociality: a dynamic social group comprising a larger community with subgroups, including families and close friendships. Groups merged for safety, such as for sleeping or in breeding colonies, but then split up for foraging during the day. Various animals have fluid sociality, including fish (guppies), cetaceans (dolphins), ungulates (deer), elephants, most mammalian carnivores (lions, hyenas), and primates.
fossil fuel: a flammable fuel formed from dead organisms. Coal, petroleum, and methane are fossil fuels. Coal comprises ancient dead plants pressed into rock resemblance. Petroleum originates from archaic algae and zooplankton, turned into a viscous brew. Methane is a gas. Fossil fuels take tens of millions of years to form, and so, in their extraction, are nonrenewable resources.
G
genus (plural: genera): a category of organisms, more generic than species.
glacial period (aka glaciation): a period of glaciers, typically thousands of years, within an ice age, marked by colder temperatures and glacial advances. By contrast, interglacials are periods of warmer climate within an ice age. The last glacial period in the hominid era ended 15 TBF.
good (economics): a product or service. See bad.
government: the authorities responsible for governance of a political unit (e.g., nation).
grass: a large, versatile, ubiquitous monocot that grew on all of Earth’s continents. Grasses had small flowers and sheathing leaves covering hollow stems. They included cereals and bamboo, but not other plants commonly called grasses, such as seagrasses, rushes, and sedges (though rushes and sedges are related to grass).
Great Depression (171–161 BF): the longest and most severe economic downturn in the modern world before the fall. The financial shock that sparked the depression originated in the United States. Its contagion quickly spread to Europe.
Great Dying (252 MBF): Earth’s most severe mass extinction event prior to Earther self-extinction.
greenhouse: an enclosed area in which a desired temperature range is maintained, usually with much glass to let abundant sunlight in. Greenhouses were used to cultivate tender plants or grow them out of season.
greenhouse (climate): see hothouse.
greenhouse effect: the process by which radiation from the atmosphere warms a planet’s surface.
greenhouse gas: an atmospheric gas that has a warming effect on a planet’s surface from shedding heat energy absorbed via infrared radiation. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Water vapor acts as a greenhouse gas.
groupthink: the praxis of approaching and dealing with issues via consensus. Democracy is a political form of groupthink.
gyre: a conceptual framework which treats a physical system as a dynamic vortex. A gyre may be characterized by its structure, qualities, thermodynamics, and interactions.
H
habitat: the environment in which a species population lives.
heat engine: a machine that transforms input thermal energy into mechanical power.
herbivory: feeding on plants.
heterotroph: an organism that cannot make its own food. All animals are heterotrophs. Compare autotroph.
Himalayas: a young mountain range formed by the Indian subcontinent moving north and slamming into Eurasia. 9 of the 10 highest peaks on Earth are in the Himalayas.
Hinduism: the dominant religion of India’s natives, founded upon some of the earliest texts on spiritual realization, when the Indus civilization was extant.
homeostasis (biology): a bodily regulatory process of striving for holistic health. Compare autopoiesis.
homeostasis (physics): a tendency toward systemic stability.
hominid: an ape descendant, some of which became hominin.
hominin: the hypothesized clade that descended into humans. See hominid.
Homo (from 2.4 BF): a diverse genus of hominids which included modern humans (Earthers).
hothouse (aka greenhouse): a duration lasting millions of years where Earth is warm and typically humid, completely lacking continental glaciers. Contrast icehouse.
human (aka Homo sapiens, Earther): a bipedal, largely furless primate.
humanoid: an ape with human-like characteristics.
hydrocarbon: an organic compound comprising hydrogen (H) and carbon (C). Methane (CH4) is an exemplary hydrocarbon.
hydrogen (H): the primordial chemical element, with a single proton and solitary electron; the lightest and most abundant chemical in the universe, comprising 75% of cosmic mass.
hydrosphere: the bioelement of water, including the participants in the water cycle.
hypothesis: a guess gussied up in scientific garb. Under the scientific method, hypotheses are ripe for falsifiability testing. Compare theory.
I
icehouse (aka ice age): a span of millions of years where the world has continental ice sheets, tending toward cool and arid climate. Contrast hothouse.
ideology: the body of beliefs, symbols, and sociopolitical aims of an individual, group, or institution.
iğnorance: the level of consciousness of unknowing, where nattermind runs living and inspires suffering for the resident consciousness. Compare enlightenment.
immanent justice: the belief in a natural force that enforces a moral universe. The concept of karma is exemplary.
imagination: the faculty for fabricating perceptions or symbolic constructs.
Indus Valley Civilization (aka Harappan civilization) (~9000–~3600 BF): a peaceful, prosperous civilization that flourished in the basins of the monsoon-fed Indus River, extending from northeast Afghanistan to northwest India. At its peak, the civilization may have had a population of over 5 million.
Industrial Revolution: the era of industrialization that began in England in the mid-4th century BF. English economic historian Arnold Toynbee popularized the term. Industrialization engendered 3 complementary social dynamics: 1) rapid urbanization, 2) a population boom, and 3) the destruction of the existing feudal social hierarchy, which was gradually replaced by a dominant social class of wealth inherited or made from manufacture, trade, and/or finance.
intelligence (biology): an attribution for behaving appropriately.
interspecific: occurring between distinct species. Contrast conspecific.
Iron Age (~3400–2600 BF): the last (3rd) principal period of the 3-age system, noted for widespread use of iron and the development of steel. See Stone Age, Bronze Age.
K
karma: the moralistic idea that Nature naturally rewards good and punishes evil in its own time (immanent justice).
keystone species: a species in a biome that acts as a provider or facilitator for other species, even indirectly.
king: a male monarch (sovereign).
L
labor theory of value: the idea that the economic value of a good entirely derives from the labor involved to make it.
language: a system of symbols with interrelated meanings.
legalism: autocratic rule of law.
Levant: the broad geographical region east of the Mediterranean Sea. The term Levant first appeared in English in 603 BF, originally meaning “the East.” The Levant was characterized as the “crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, and northeast Africa.”
life-history variable: a trait or aspect of an organism’s existence related to others; often viewed comparatively, as a trade-off with other, mutually exclusive possibilities.
lithosphere: the outermost shell of a rocky planet. Earth’s lithosphere comprises its crust and upper mantle: the portions that behave elastically over geological expanses of time.
localization (physics): the process of creating a local effect or field from a universal field. Compare quantization.
M
mammal: a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals, characterized by endothermy, hair, and females with mammary glands.
manipularity-intelligence theory: a theory by Ishi Nobu that the ease by which organisms can manipulate their environment is inversely related to acumen as a life-history variable.
market economy: a willy-nilly economic system operating via trade. Compare command economy, traditional economy.
mass extinction: the indiscriminate extinction of many species during a planetary extinction event.
materialism (psychology, economics): a worldview valuing material consumption and possessions.
matter: the mental fabrication of physicality. See energy.
matterism: the monistic belief that reality is made of matter. Matterism supposes that the mind is a figment of something substantial. Contrast energyism.
meat: animal tissue, especially the flesh of mammals, as food.
medieval: see Middle Ages.
memory: the recall of mental fabrications which are attributed as having occurred in the past.
mentalizing (aka mind perception): inferring the mental state of another being, typically another person.
menopause: the transitional period of reproductive senescence well before natural death, typically occurring in women around 50 years of age.
Mesolithic (20–5 TBF: 20–8 TBF in southwest Asia, 15–5 TBF in Europe): the final period of foraging in human cultures as the predominant lifestyle, before giving way to agriculture.
Mesozoic–Cenozoic radiation (beginning 65 MBF): a period of rapid radiation in new bird and mammal species. The fragmentation of the supercontinent Pangea was instrumental.
methane (CH4) (aka natural gas): a colorless, odorless, flammable gas. Compare coal, petroleum.
Middle Ages (aka medieval period) (~1633–700 BF): the era of European history between the 17th and 7th centuries BF, beginning with the collapse of the (western) Roman Empire and the onset of the Dark Ages.
mind: an object-oriented misnomer for the mentation process.
mind perception: see mentalizing.
Miocene (23–5.3 MBF): the 1st of 2 epochs in the Neogene period, divided into 6 ages with corresponding geological stages.
model (mathematics): a mathematical construct. See physical model.
monarch: a commander, often an autocrat, in a dynasty.
Mongols: a central-east Asian ethnic group (race) first written about in the 14th century BF.
Mongol conquests: the incursion of Mongols into much of continental Asia during the 9th to 8th centuries BF.
monism: the metaphysical doctrine that there is a singular reality, either matterism or energyism. Contrast dualism.
monkey: a simian with a tail, as contrasted to tailless apes.
monocot (monocotyledon): a plant with a single embryonic leaf (cotyledon) in its seed. Other plant clades may have 2 (dicot) or 3 (eudicot) initial leaves.
monocrop: growing a single crop on a plot of land.
monotheism: belief in a singular god. Compare polytheism.
moral: conforming to a principle of appropriate behavior based upon respect for other life.
moral absolutism: the principle that acts are intrinsically right or wrong. See deontology.
moral universe: the belief that morality exists in Nature.
multicellularity: an organismal structure comprising multiple cells. Contrast pluricellularity.
N
naïve realism (aka commonsense realism, scientific realism): the belief that actuality as perceived is reality.
nation: a political territory. Compare state. See nation-state.
nation-state: the government (state) of a nation; the concept of a nation and its governance as integral.
nattermind (aka monkey-mind): the involuntary, independent agent in the mind that instills and maintains iğnorance. Contrast willmind. See coremind.
natural gas: a methane-rich gas. Compare coal, petroleum.
natural law: a philosophy of law premised upon the belief that there a universal morality associated with fairness. See moral universe.
natural philosophy: the study of Nature from a holistic perspective; the common method of comprehending Nature until the 5th century BF, before science took over.
naturalism: the monistic matterist belief that observable actuality and reality are synonymous. Compare naïve realism. See matterism. Contrast supernaturalism.
Nature: the perceived exhibition of existence.
Neogene (23–0.05 MBF): the middle geological period of 3 in the Cenozoic era, during which mammals and birds evolved into their modern forms. Later in the period hominids arose.
neoteny (aka juvenilization, pedomorphosis): retention by adults of traits previously seen only in the young (in the perspective of evolutionary descent).
New World: the hemisphere of the Americas and nearby islands; sometimes Oceania is included. The term originated in the early 6th century BF by European explorers expanding their worldly horizons. Contrast Old World.
O
objectivity: the idea that Nature and reality are independent of consciousness. Contrast showtivity.
obsidian: a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth.
Oceania: a region centered on the islands in the tropical Pacific Ocean, including Australasia.
offshoring: the relocation of a business process from one country to another.
Old World: Africa, Europe, and Asia: the part of the world known to Europeans prior to their sojourns to the Americas. Contrast New World.
olfaction: sense of smell.
oligarchy: despotic power by a privileged clique.
Oligocene (34–23 MBF): the 3rd and last geologic epoch in the Paleogene period.
onager (aka Asiatic wild ass): a donkey-like equid that evolved on the grasslands of Eurasia. Onagers were among the fastest mammals, able to run 65 km/h (40 mph).
organic (chemistry): a molecular structure based upon a carbon backbone.
organism: a cellular life form. Compare virus.
Ottoman Empire (801–178 BF): an empire founded by the Turks upon their conquest of Constantinople (647 BF), thus overthrowing the Byzantine Empire.
oxygen (O): the element with atomic number 8; a highly reactive nonmetallic element that readily forms compounds (oxides) with almost all other elements.
P
Paleogene (66–23 MBF): the 1st of 3 periods in the Cenozoic era.
pandemic: a widespread outbreak of a disease that afflicts many people on different continents.
Pangea (aka Pangaea): the supercontinent that contained most of Earth’s land mass 300–200 MBF. The global ocean of the time was Panthalassa. Pangea broke up into Laurasia to the north and southern Gondwana.
papal: relating to the pope (ruler) of the Roman Catholic Church.
parasitism: the lifestyle of an organism living in, on, or with another organism in a way that typically affects the health of its host.
parliament: in modern times, a state lawmaking body of designated representatives which also often served as a check on the power of a ruler.
peat: an accumulation of partly decayed vegetation and other organic matter that becomes part of the soil. Areas rich in peat are called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs.
perception: the process of making sense of sensation, including determining significance and meaning.
personal fact: an individual construal. Compare social fact. See fact.
pest: an organism deemed a nuisance.
pesticide: a biocide intended to destroy pests.
petroleum: a natural yellow-to-black liquid comprising algae, zooplankton, and other organisms crushed, heated, and liquefied. Compare coal, methane.
photosynthesis: (an organism) converting sunlight into energy, using water and air as substrates.
physical model: a typically geometric or algebraic model yielding a mathematical characterization of an embodied phenomena.
physical theory: an explanation of relationships between various measurable phenomena. A physical theory may include a model of physical events (i.e., a physical model).
phytonutrient: a nutrient obtained by eating plants.
plant: a sessile autotroph. Mosses, ferns, conifers, and flowering plants (angiosperms) are plants. Compare animal.
planthopper: a tiny hopping insect that lived on vegetation, both residentially and dietarily. Planthoppers fed on the sugar-laden sap that courses through plant phloem.
pluricellularity: the structure of multiple cells aggregating in an organized manner. Contrast multicellularity.
plutocracy: (conservative) political rule by the wealthy.
polar (mathematics): a 2D coordinate system in which each point on a plane is referred to by a distance from a reference point and an angle from a reference direction. The reference point is the pole, and the ray from the pole the polar axis.
polity: a particular form of government.
pollution: something unhealthy lingering in the environment or causing a detriment in habitats.
polytheism: belief in multiple gods. Compare monotheism.
precocial: animals with relatively mature and mobile young from the moment of birth or hatching. Many, though not all, arthropods, fish, amphibians, and reptiles are precocial. Contrast altricial.
primate: a mammal order, containing prosimians (neither monkey nor ape) and simians (monkeys and apes).
product: an object made by labor. Compare service.
prokaryote: an organism that lacks a cell nucleus or other membrane-bound organelles. Bacteria are prokaryotes. While prokaryotes are single-celled, most can form stable, aggregate communities, such as a biofilm. Compare eukaryote.
prophet: someone with a cogent vision of the future.
Q
quantization (physics): creating a localized appearance of matter. Compare localization.
quorum sensing: decision-making in a decentralized network.
R
radiation (evolutionary biology): profuse adaptive speciation.
reality: that which necessarily is, regardless of existence.
realization: see unity consciousness.
Roaring Twenties: the (Gregorian) 1920s (170s BF) decade in Western culture, especially in the USA. A facile prosperity bloomed from financial speculation, which crashed at the end of the decade, ushering the Great Depression.
rodent: an order of mammals characterized by constantly growing incisors that must be kept short by gnawing.
ruler: a commander with limited power, which may be checked by a parliament or other authority in a state.
ruminant: a hoofed mammal herbivore that digests via stomach fermentation. Bovids are ruminants.
S
saltation: a leap in evolution.
sand puppy (aka naked mole rat, desert mole rat): a eusocial burrowing rodent native to East Africa.
savanna (aka savannah): a grassland biome with trees sufficiently spaced so that the canopy does not close, despite a tree density that may be greater than a forest.
science: the study of Nature, emphasizing empirical methods. Contrast natural philosophy.
scientific method: a set of empirical techniques for investigating phenomena, ostensibly involving careful observation before guessing what is going on, which is known as forming a theory. Guessing prior to extensive and intensive observation is making a hypothesis.
self-organized criticality: a property of dynamic systems where a critical threshold (tipping point) exists that, when passed, sets off a substantial reaction.
sensation, sense: uptake from the senses. See perception.
service: an economic activity of benefit to someone.
showtivity: a seemingly shared experiential platform provided by Ĉocö as an ordering principle for the perception of Nature. Contrast objectivity.
simian: the suborder of primates comprising the “higher” primates: monkeys, apes, and humans. Simians tend to be larger than prosimians (“lower primates”).
simple supernaturalism: the monistic doctrine that all of Nature is a unicity of entangled interaction. Compare animism.
smelt: applying heat to an ore to extract a base metal. Smelting was used to extract valued metals from the ores in which they were mined, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. The first metals smelted were lead and tin, beginning around 10.2 TBF. Smelting severely pollutes nearby water, soil, and air.
smog: lingering foul air; a portmanteau of smoke and fog.
social fact: a construal accepted by others. Compare personal fact. See fact.
socialism: an economy aimed at equity. To avert externalities, socialist theorists favored a command economy. Contrast capitalism.
solipsism: the irrefutable argument that only oneself can be proven to exist; universally ignored by Earthers.
sovereign debt: debt incurred by a state from spending more than (tax) revenues garnered; debt via deficit spending. Practicing unsustainable governance, modern states incurred stunning levels of sovereign debt.
speciation: the process of species formation.
species (biology): a distinct population of organisms.
starling: a (bird) family of sociable, medium-sized passerines. Many Asian starling species, particularly larger ones, were called mynas.
state (politics): the governing group (clique) of a nation.
status function: a mental attachment to an object by ascribing it esteemed meaning, purpose, or function.
steppe: a biome of grassland plains, lacking trees except near rivers and lakes.
Stone Age (roughly 3.4 MBF–5400 BF): the 1st principal period of the 3-age system, noted for use of stone tools, prior to the advent of metalworking. See Bronze Age, Iron Age.
subjective: the perspective of an individual mind.
sulfur (S): abundant on Earth, sulfur is a key element in biological processes. As an atmospheric pollutant (combined with oxygen), sulfur is a source of toxic acid rain.
Sun: the star at the center of the planetary system to which Earth belonged. The Sun has a diameter of 1,392,000 km.
supernaturalism: the belief that energetic forces are in play beyond the phenomenal. See simple supernaturalism, energyism. Contrast naturalism.
sustainability: the fanciful Earther concept of controllably exploiting Nature so that innumerable future generations of humans could prosper.
T
tactility: sense of touch.
talionic: based upon retribution.
tectonic plate: a sizable slab of the lithosphere, including some of Earth’s crust, capable of movement.
teleology (evolutionary biology): the amply evidenced theory that adaptation is goal oriented.
teleology (moral philosophy) (aka consequentialism): adjudging morality by the outcome of acts. Contrast deontology.
teleology (philosophy): the doctrine that final causes (ends or purposes) exist.
theory: fact-based explanation about the relations between concepts. Compare hypothesis. See physical theory.
tipping point: a critical moment in a complex situation in which events produce an inevitable change in the vector of future events.
traditional economy: a survival system with scant trade. Compare command economy, market economy.
travois: a transport device comprising 2 poles serving as shafts, joined to a frame, and bearing a platform for the load.
tribe: a social group with a shared culture. Compare clan.
turbine: a machine capturing energy from a moving fluid for work.
Turk: a member of numerous Asian peoples speaking a Turkic language.
turtle: a reptile with a unique, defensive, bony shell developed from its ribs, in the Testudines order. Originating 220 MBF via saltation, turtles were one of the oldest reptile groups.
U
ungulate: a group of mammals which use the tips of their toes, typically hoofed, to sustain body weight while moving. Even-toed ungulates (artiodactyl) bear their weight equally between the 3rd and 4th toes. Odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyl), which have an odd number of toes on their rear feet, bear weight on their 3rd toe.
unity consciousness (aka realization): the supreme level of consciousness, with an abiding experience of the unicity of Nature via connectivity with Cönsciousness. Compare enlightenment, see iğnorance.
V
virus: an obligate parasite that self-evolved to infect cells in all other life. Viruses aided their venture by inventing DNA and introducing it to organisms.
vision: the sense of sight through light.
vitalism (biology): the doctrine that there is a vital energy to life, distinct from chemical and physical forces.
vitalism (natural philosophy): the idea that life is essentially distinct from inanimate matter. Compare animism.
W
weather: characterization of daily or other short-term tropospheric conditions in a locality. Compare climate.
Western (world) (politics): nations in Europe and the Americas. Derived from the Latin occidentalis, which meant western. In the 7th century BF, Europeans contrasted the Occident (the West) from the Orient (the East). Whereas the West comprised Europe and its conquests in the Americas, the East included China, Japan, and India.
white (sociology): modern vernacular for light-skinned people, especially those with a European heritage. Contrast black.
willmind: willful (volitional) mentation. Contrast nattermind.
Z
zoonosis: an infectious, pathogenic (animal) disease that can be transmitted to humans. The major modern human diseases were zoonoses. Zoonoses may be sourced to a wide range of pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites. Most pathogenic human diseases originated in other animals. But only diseases that were routinely transmitted from other animals to humans were considered zoonosis. When humans infect other animals, the term used was anthroponosis or reverse zoonosis.
