Morphology, Seam Topology, and Temporal Scaffolding in Complex Systems
This paper introduces the Morphological Participation Index (MPI), a substrate-agnostic framework for estimating whether a system’s morphology can plausibly support strongly integrated, coherence-sensitive, trace-rich, and temporally scaffolded dynamics. “Participation” refers to the degree to which morphology actively contributes to, constrains, and scaffolds the integrated, trace-bearing, and temporally organized dynamics available to a system. The immediate motivation comes from two adjoining lines of work: spectral approaches to resistance to decomposition, and recent proposals by Schneider and Bailey concerning prototime, […]