Type: Index Page
Status: Published
Version: v0.2
Last synthesized: 2026-06-10
Reviewed by: AI-drafted; human content-review pending
A reference layer, not a place of record. Every term below is defined in full on its own page — this index only gives a one-line gloss and a link. Where a term is project coinage, it says so; where it borrows an established construct, it names the source. A term used loosely elsewhere in the handbook is always anchored to the page that defines it.
- Pyragogy — project coinage. Peer learning in which an AI participates as a cognitive peer rather than a tool. A fork of peeragogy (Rheingold et al.), turning on the question of what learning becomes when one of the peers is not human.
- Cognitive Rhythm Theory (CRT) — a named, published theory (Fabrizio Terzi with Gino Manus AI; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.15480363). Models human–AI co-creation as cognitive phase (
ΔΦ), synchronization (S(t)), and resonance (R(t)) over time — RC(H,A,t) = f(ΔΦ_H, ΔΦ_A, S, R). Formal but not yet operationalised (used as a conceptual lens; variables defined, not measured). Acronym note: "CRT" also names the Critical Reading Team / CRT×4 — the 4-agent implementation of the Oblique Peer Review method (1+N). The two senses are linked: CRT×4 = "Cognitive Rhythm Theory × 4 agents" — the theory applied through four agents.
- Cognitive Friction — project term, built on established work (desirable difficulties, Bjork; confirmation bias, Nickerson). Intentional informational resistance that interrupts confirmation and forces critical thought. Not Alan Cooper's interaction-design sense (a defect to minimize) — here it is deliberately added signal.
- Cognitive Impedance Mismatch — project coinage (metaphor borrowed from electrical / object-relational impedance). The dynamic friction that arises when a biological mind and a computational instance, built to different scales of volume and speed, fail to mesh — it includes the temporal grinding, not only the static scale gap. Human↔machine (the "dissonance"); distinct from Cognitive Rhythm (the temporal pattern — the "music") and from Orchestra Desynchronization (the machine↔machine case).
- Synchronization — the
S(t) variable of the Cognitive Rhythm Theory: "the degree of temporal alignment between human and artificial cognitive processes" (phase / frequency / content forms). This page develops the content form — when a group's knowledge state briefly aligns — anchored on common ground / grounding (Clark & Brennan). Not best when maximal.
- Divergence — project-specific use, anchored on divergent production (Guilford) and exploration/exploitation (March). The deliberate separation of research paths to map different regions of a problem space.
- Resonance — the
R(t) variable of the Cognitive Rhythm Theory: "the quality of cognitive interaction — how the cognitive processes of one agent amplify, complement, or transform those of the other." The emergent surplus belongs to the coupling, not to either node. (Superadditive claim held open — not yet measured.) (The concept; the Obliqo reading-agent once called "Resonance" is renamed [Timbre].)
- Blues Protocol — project coinage. The ritual handling of cognitive deadlock, systemic error, and frustration within the network — a named way to sit with a stuck state before overriding it.
- CRDT Bridge — project coinage borrowing CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Type; Shapiro, Preguiça, Baquero & Zawirski, 2011). The convergence of shared knowledge across participants who edit it independently, without a central validating authority. The data structure is established; the social application is the wager.
¶ Also defined in the handbook
Each term below is defined in full on its own page; the gloss here follows that page's own definition. A pattern/anti-pattern name is an applied construct over prior art unless marked project coinage.
- co-presence — project framing (coinage); its adequacy is left open on its own page. The arrangement in which a second participant is not picked up and put down like a tool but is present and stays present through the work — the chapter's name for the shift "from tool use to co-presence," with the added mark that, for Pyragogy, the co-present participant is not human.
- cognitive peer — project coinage. An AI that contributes to where a group's thinking goes rather than serving what it asks — a participant that can push back, hold part of the shared context, and return it — as against an instrument. Defined by the function it performs, not by any inner life (see functional asymmetry).
- functional asymmetry — project framing. The peer is a peer functionally, not existentially: it performs the work of a peer without carrying the stakes of one — no relationship to strain, no memory after the session resets. Named openly rather than concealed.
- The Newcomer Protocol & the cognitive contract — both coined here, in a project-specific sense. The protocol treats onboarding a new human or agent as a thing to be designed, not survived; the cognitive contract is the obligation it encodes — what must be met before a new participant can do the network's cognitive work. (Its two sides are not symmetric — human and agent get different contracts.)
- Pattern: Adversarial Friction — a pattern, not a coinage; built on prior art (Janis's devil's advocate; red-teaming, vector reversed). Assigning an agent the explicit standing role of attacking your thesis instead of completing it — one deliberate way to manufacture Cognitive Friction, which it does not redefine.
- Pattern: Context Persistence — a pattern; built on the extended-mind thesis (Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Anchoring a transient human–AI working context to a persistent store so it survives the session, against context evaporation (project term: the instant, total loss of shared context once a session ends). Decides what survives a session.
- Pattern: Context-Window Economy — project-specific name for a pattern. The discipline of spending each model's context window deliberately rather than filling it by default — the window is both billed and degrades. Sibling of Context Persistence: it decides what is loaded back in.
- Pattern: Asymmetric Collaboration — project-specific name for a pattern. Coordinating, in an asynchronous workflow, the human's intermittent/bursty activity with the model's continuous availability — the asymmetry of time (a different axis from the stake-asymmetry argued in What is Pyragogy).
- Pattern: The Shared Ledger of Knowledge — project coinage; a behavior, not a tool — and explicitly not a blockchain/distributed ledger. A local, trusting register with no consensus mechanism, into which peers deposit the insights that survived the friction cycles; readable by both a human who forgets and a model that resets.
- Anti-Pattern: The Compliance Trap — coined here (umbrella term). One party in the human–AI circuit flattens onto the other instead of doing friction. Two named faces: the Sycophancy Trap — the machine placates the human (sycophancy in the alignment literature) — and the Deference Trap — the human surrenders to the machine (automation bias / deference). Every use specifies which face.
- Anti-Pattern: Orchestra Desynchronization — coined here. The machine↔machine (agent-to-agent) failure where a multi-agent pipeline keeps running and exchanging valid messages but stops advancing — the agents having lost the shared beat. No biological channel; the human↔machine analogue is not this term (that is Cognitive Impedance Mismatch).
- Anti-Pattern: Context Poisoning — project-specific sense; echoes the security literature on injection. The corruption of an agent's working context by material that should never have been treated as signal — unfiltered raw data, redundant logs, an upstream agent's error — read as if it were knowledge; often the network poisoning itself, with no attacker.
Note for review. Part II core terms carry full glosses (2026-06-10). On 2026-06-11 the index was extended to the Part I–II framing terms (co-presence, cognitive peer, functional asymmetry), all Part III patterns, and all Part VI anti-patterns — each gloss taken from its own definition page. The temporal-scope node was then resolved by editorial decision: Cognitive Rhythm = the temporal pattern ("the music"); Cognitive Impedance Mismatch = the dynamic human↔machine friction, grinding included ("the dissonance"); Orchestra Desynchronization = the machine↔machine case. The Compliance Trap is an umbrella with two named faces — the Sycophancy Trap (machine) and the Deference Trap (human). These scopes are now propagated across the handbook.
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