Binding Chaos
Black box words
Words with no definition other than circular, often used to pretend a meaning where none is known or disguise a meaning which is against the authoritative endoreality. Examples are nothing, imagination, and random. In the Binding Chaos series, black box words are used when the full definition is unknown. An example is anima conduit.
Expanded explanation
A black box word is a word that looks like it means something but has no real definition, only a circular one. It serves one of two purposes. Either it pretends to a meaning where none is actually known, papering a gap in understanding with a confident-sounding term, or it disguises a meaning that would contradict the authoritative reality if stated plainly. Marsh's examples are ordinary and telling: nothing, imagination and random are all words we use constantly as if they were understood, when each names an absence of explanation rather than a real account. She then turns the tool on her own work with unusual honesty, admitting that Binding Chaos uses black box words too, on purpose, wherever the full definition is genuinely unknown, and names anima conduit as one. The difference she draws is between using such a word knowingly, as a placeholder flagged as incomplete, and using it to fake or hide a meaning.
In Heather Marsh’s words
Marsh applies the concept to her own terms where a full definition is not yet available.
“Words with no definition other than circular, often used to pretend a meaning where none is known or disguise a meaning which is against the authoritative endoreality”
Abstracting Divinity
Examples
- 'Random' as a placeholder for ignorance
- Calling an outcome random often names the absence of a known cause rather than a real property, a meaning pretended where none is known.
- A word that hides an inconvenient meaning
- A term used to disguise something that would contradict the official reality if said plainly is a black box word in the second sense.
- Marsh's own use
- She flags anima conduit as a black box word in her framework, a placeholder held open where the full definition is unknown.
How others use it
In engineering and science, a black box is a system understood only by its inputs and outputs, not its internal workings, and the term is used neutrally. Marsh borrows the image for language, applying it critically to words that hide the absence of understanding, while keeping the neutral use for her own honestly flagged placeholders.
Sources
Defined in the Binding Chaos series glossary, and introduced in the abstracting-divinity material of Abstracting Divinity.
Recommended reading path
Then read in full: Abstracting Divinity.
A suggested order for exploring this corner of the theory.