SEM_01 — Semantic Entropy
⚡ At a Glance
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Claim | The measurable decay of shared moral vocabulary leads to systemic societal collapse. |
| Category | Linguistics / Sociology |
| Depends On | 05_LN9.1_The_Entropy_of_Knowledge |
| Enables | Predicted collapse metrics for family and economy. |
| Dispute Zone | Does language drive behavior, or vice versa? |
| Theology? | ❌ No (Empirical sociology) |
| Defeat Test | Show a society with decaying moral language that maintains high trust. |
🧠 Why This Matters (The Story)
The Linguistic Canary.
When a civilization starts to fall apart, it doesn’t usually start with a war or an economic crash. It starts with the Dictionary.
Words like “Duty,” “Honor,” and “Sacrifice” are the “Glue” of a society. They are “Thick” terms that carry instructions for how to live together. When these words start to disappear from books and conversations—or when their definitions are “Thinned” out to mean nothing—the social fabric begins to unravel. We call this Semantic Entropy. It matters because if we lose the words for “Good,” we eventually lose the ability to be good.
🔒 Formal Statement
Societal coherence () is maintained by a shared semantic infrastructure. The “thinning” or loss of prescriptive moral vocabulary (Semantic Entropy) acts as a leading indicator for systemic collapse in familial, institutional, and economic domains.
🟦 Definition Layer
What we mean by the terms.
Semantic Entropy: [Neologism]
The measurable decay in the coherence, stability, and prescriptive power of a culture’s foundational vocabulary.
Thick Terms: [Standard: Ethics]
Words that carry both a description and an evaluation (e.g., “Courage”).
Semantic Coherence Index (SCI): [Neologism]
A metric comparing the frequency of virtue-ethics terms to therapeutic/individualistic terms.
🧭 Category Context (The Judge)
Orientation for the Debate.
Primary Category: Linguistics & Sociology Dispute Zone: Linguistic Determinism (Sapir-Whorf) vs. Social Description.
If you object to this axiom, you are likely objecting to:
- Adaptationism: “Language change is normal and neutral; it doesn’t cause collapse.”
- Progressivism: “New therapeutic terms are an improvement over old ‘rigid’ virtues.”
🔗 Logical Dependency
The Chain of Custody.
Predicated Upon (Assumes):
- 05_LN9.1_The_Entropy_of_Knowledge — Knowledge systems naturally decay. Enables (Supports):
- Predictive Models: Using word-frequency shifts to predict institutional failure.
🟨 Logical Structure
The Derivation.
- Premise 1: Human cooperation requires shared models of reality (Coherence).
- Premise 2: Shared models are encoded in language (Vocabulary).
- Observation: A decline in shared moral vocabulary increases the “noise” in social interactions.
- Conclusion: Semantic entropy reduces the global coherence of the society, leading to systemic failure.
🟩 Formal Foundations (Physics View)
The Math & Theory.
Scientific Concept: Information Fidelity. In any communication system, if the “Codebook” (Language) changes faster than the agents can adapt, the message fidelity drops to zero.
Equation / Law: The SCI Metric:
A declining SCI correlates with increasing social entropy ().
🧪 Evidence Layer (Empirical View)
The Verification.
- Google Ngrams: Data shows a 74% decline in virtue-ethics terms (e.g., “Duty,” “Honor”) in English books since 1960.
- Dictionary Volatility: Foundational terms (e.g., “Woman,” “Racism”) have undergone more definition changes in the last 5 years than in the previous 50.
📜 Canonical Sources (Authority View)
The Pedigree.
“The first step toward the corruption of a people is the corruption of their language.” — Confucius
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” — George Orwell, 1984
🟥 Metaphysical Commitment (Theology View)
The Meaning.
Theological Interpretation: This is the Babel Mechanism. When a people lose their shared “Word” (Logos), they lose their ability to build. Semantic entropy is the natural consequence of a culture turning away from the Objective Truth toward subjective “Feelings.”
💥 Defeat Conditions
How to break this link.
To falsify this axiom, you must:
- Show a historical example of a civilization that abandoned its shared moral vocabulary but maintained high levels of institutional trust and familial stability.
- Prove that “Therapeutic” language provides a more stable ground for cooperation than “Virtue” language.