Mind · Strategy
EndogenousStress
The internal load a system carries from being partly prepared for possible external stressors
Definition
Mechanism
In a FractionalMetaModel, functions prepared for a possible ExogenousStress are partly built: data processed through two pipeline stages but not the third, passwords memorable but not yet valid, components readied for a server failure. This preparedness costs effort without yet producing output, and it shows up as friction, a raised ComputationalEntropyRate in the system's channels. That internal load is endogenous stress. Its rational level rises with the likelihood of the exogenous stressor: the more likely the event, the more partial preparation is worth carrying, because completing a function then takes only a small change. A system can be over-stressed (carrying preparation for stressors that will not come, which should be removed) or under-stressed (unprepared for likely stressors, which should be built up). Stress is thereby a measurable technical quantity in software, organisations and cells, not only a description of a biological pathway.
Invariants
- Endogenous stress is proportional to the partly built functions a system carries
- Its rational level rises with the likelihood of the corresponding exogenous stressor
- High endogenous stress means a small change completes the prepared function
Risks
Failure modes
Eliminating all internal friction as inefficiency and so removing preparedness
Carrying preparation for stressors that have become unlikely
Measuring stress only as a symptom, not as information about expected exogenous stressors
Relationships
Builds on
References
Infrastructure
Bits submitted per bit accepted in a channel that computes, where rejection is meaningful work rather than noise
Physics
An external event or change in requirements that the current shape does not handle and that forces it to change
An implementation that is at once one working model and a partial implementation of several others, so that some functions can be completed or removed with a small change
Used by
References
Society
Pre-position part of a possible future configuration so that, when the game changes, most agents already fit the new optimum and only the remaining fraction must change strategy