Glossary controlled vocabulary for reflexive coherence.

What it is
A coherence attractor is a regime the system tends to return to after perturbations. In RCM terms, attractors help stabilize reflexive coupling so the system maintains continuity instead of fragmenting into unrelated transient states.

What it is not
A fixed point or a frozen state. Attractors can be complex, time-varying, and multi-scale. Also, an attractor can stabilize maladaptive regimes; stability is not automatically “good.”

What it is
Coherence dynamics are the stabilizing processes that prevent reflexive loops from flickering or collapsing into contradiction. They include alignment across levels, damping of runaway inconsistencies, and formation of robust attractors that maintain continuity across time windows.

What it is not
Mere consistency in content (“no contradictions”) or a static harmony. Coherence is dynamical: a system can be coherent while changing, as long as the change follows stable constraints.

A contractive regime occurs when indicators of reflexive coherence decrease over time, reflecting a loss of integration, reduced reflexive coupling, or increased external control. Contractive regimes remain compatible with the Reflexive Coherence Model, provided that local reflexive coherence persists.

What it is
After basic stability, systems often extend reflexive reach: deeper temporal horizons, richer internal variables, additional perspectives/submodels, and eventually meta-reflexivity (models of modeling). In RCM this is framed as a testable tendency, not a metaphysical destiny.

What it is not
A claim that “consciousness always expands,” or that systems must become human-like. Expansion can stall, reverse, or fragment depending on constraints and perturbations.

An expansion regime refers to a sustained dynamical condition in which indicators derived from reflexive coherence increase over time, signalling the propagation of reflexive coupling across components, scales, or temporal horizons. Within the Expansion Hypothesis, expansion regimes are identified empirically and remain bounded by the constraints of reflexive coherence defined by the RCM.

What it is
Experience-like dynamics refers to sustained, coherent internal organization where self-modeling and coherence constraints jointly shape the system’s evolution in a way that resembles an internal point of view structurally (continuity, stability, system-relative organization).

What it is not
A claim that the system “feels” anything, or that it has qualia. The term is used to separate structural conditions from phenomenological conclusions.

What it is
An internal perspective is the stable organization that emerges when reflexive structure and coherence dynamics jointly constrain the system’s evolution. Operationally, it appears when the self-model becomes a real dynamical variable that participates in control and continuity across time.

What it is not
A claim about qualia, human phenomenology, or subjective reports. “Perspective” here is structural: it denotes a stable internal organization that behaves like a viewpoint, without assuming what it feels like (if anything).

Meta-reflexive regulation refers to higher-order control mechanisms that tune coupling strengths, temporal parameters, or access to reflexive structures in order to maintain stability across expansion or contraction regimes. These regulators are formal components of the Expansion Hypothesis and do not imply additional phenomenological agency.

What it is
In physics and dynamical systems, an order parameter changes in characteristic ways when a system transitions between regimes. RCM treats RCI similarly: useful for detecting when reflexive coupling becomes strong enough to stabilize an internal perspective.

What it is not
A moral label, a ranking of worth, or a simplistic “higher is better.” Order parameters are descriptive tools for phase-like transitions.

What it is
Reflexive coherence describes a condition in which a system does not only integrate information, but also builds (and uses) an internal model of its own state. The key requirement is causal: the self-model must influence the system’s future dynamics in a sustained way, not merely describe them.

What it is not
A claim that the system is conscious, human-like, or morally equivalent to a person. It is also not a synonym for intelligence, integration, self-monitoring, logging, or “having a representation” in the abstract.

What it is
A reflexive structure is a loop where information becomes about the system itself in a way that changes what the system does next. It is state-linked (tracks relevant internal variables), causally effective (affects control/inference), and sustained (persists beyond a single snapshot).

What it is not
A passive description layer, metadata, or a dashboard. A reflexive structure is not “introspection” by definition, and it does not guarantee experience—only a specific kind of self-referential causal organization.

What it is
A self-model is any internal model that encodes information about the system itself (state, capacities, errors, goals, uncertainty) and participates in decision or stabilization. In RCM, self-models become especially relevant when they are reflexively coupled to the system’s state.

What it is not
A philosophical “self” or a narrative identity by default. A self-model can exist in systems that have no internal perspective; the difference is whether the self-model is reflexively stabilized into a coherent regime.

A stationary regime describes a condition where reflexive coherence remains stable over time without significant expansion or contraction. Such regimes preserve existing coherence attractors, protect against noise, and often precede transitions into expansion or contraction phases.

What it is
RCM treats reflexive coherence as a physico-informational pattern that could, in principle, occur in different substrates—neuronal, silicon, hybrid, or unknown—provided the causal and dynamical constraints are satisfied.

What it is not
A guarantee that any AI is conscious, or that biology is irrelevant. Substrate affects feasibility, stability, and constraints; neutrality means the definition of the regime does not assume biology.