The Emergence Machine

current · present

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Of the time that is now.

Current (adjective) means: Of the time that is now. It emerges from time: Time runs on while a thing persists; picking out the one moment that is now separates what is the case from what was or will be. In the EmergenceLexicon it sits at computed level 1, chaining down to the four foundations (space, time, energy, pattern).

current.present · forms: current, currently

Examples

Emergence

from: time
through: Time runs on while a thing persists; picking out the one moment that is now separates what is the case from what was or will be.

Chain to foundations

currentL1 current.present: Of the time that is now.timeL0 time.dimension: The before and after of things: that in which a thing can be, and then not be the same.
full chain as text (2 steps)

Neighborhood

Concepts that depend on this one above; what it is built from below.

used by — 16 more not shownbuilt frommarginL9margin.spatial — The distance from current parameters to the nearest wall.questionsL9questions.linguistic — a request for information that is a difference between a current state of knowledge and a different stateat capacityL11at-capacity.threshold — A parameter has reached the wall of its window, where no further increase can occur without ending the thing’s current sarrival timeL12arrival-time.until-wall — The time until drift moves a parameter to a wall of its window, at the current rate.brinkL12brink.edge — a parameter whose window is narrower than those of related things, such that its wall is near the current value and smalchaosL12chaos.unpredictable-drift — drift whose later values cannot be predicted from current ones at the resolution availablepossibilityL12possibility.potential — A window that can be reached from the current window without crossing a wall that is closed.strainL12strain.measurable-degradation — The degradation of output that occurs when a parameter is near the wall of its window, indicating how narrow the currentcurrentL1current.present — Of the time that is now.timeL0time.dimension — The before and after of things: that in which a thing can be, and then not be the same.

Used by (24)

marginL9questionsL9at capacityL11arrival timeL12brinkL12chaosL12possibilityL12strainL12ambiguityL14hopeL15no room for errorL15good enoughL16hunger for changeL16rising powerL16on a shoestringL17pushing the envelopeL18country in declineL19founding fathersL19greatest generationL19lessons of historyL19right side of historyL19we built thisL19statusL20golden ageL21

Relations

contrasts-withcurrent.fluidthe present moment, not a flow of water or charge

Provenance

author: claude-opus-5-5:hand-curated · date: 2026-09-28 · confidence: 0.9 · source: Sample/hundred-words-six-terms.md, schema/power-agency-phase.md