Terms Are Not the Terms

Author: Dexin Kong
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3831-5725
Structured and refined with assistance from ChatGPT
AI Automatic Translation (Unreviewed)

Gifts from Our Predecessors

In the beginning, XVort did not have any dedicated research concerning “terminology.”

The initial goal was simply to search for explanatory paths behind recurring phenomena by studying existing theories and research.

Including:

• Cybernetics
• Systems Theory
• Cognitive Science
• Organizational Theory
• Safety Science
• Psychology
• Complex Systems

During this process, the author gained significant inspiration.

But alongside that sense of excitement, a familiar feeling of “discomfort” gradually emerged again.

Do we unconsciously assume that once a phenomenon is named, it has already been understood?

Our view of reality seems to be gradually obscured by increasingly large and complex systems of terminology.

Terms Are Indispensable

XVort does not reject terminology itself.

The author believes that terminology is an indispensable part of long-term human research activity, because reality is overwhelmingly complex.

Without terminology:

• stable communication becomes difficult
• knowledge cannot accumulate over long periods
• research communities cannot form
• collaboration becomes fragile
• deeper investigation becomes almost impossible

Much of human research is fundamentally built upon:

the stable semantic compression of complex reality.

Terms Originate from Reality Anchors

The real issue does not come from terminology itself.

What truly matters is whether the term still maintains a corresponding anchor in reality.

Many research directions originally emerged from direct observation of reality.

Researchers repeatedly:

• observed reality
• identified recurring phenomena
• established stable anchors
• extracted common characteristics
• eventually formed terminology

Therefore:

terms are fundamentally symbolic representations of reality anchors, but they are not reality itself.

Terms Are Not Reality

Reality is often chaotic.

It is:

• ambiguous
• unstable
• sometimes contradictory
• filled with noise
• lacking structured representation

As a result, systems naturally tend to:

• use terminology
• use definitions
• use classifications
• construct explanatory logic

Over time, people may gradually and unconsciously begin to believe:

that the problem has already been understood.

Then:

• complexity becomes hidden
• uncertainty becomes flattened
• reality becomes symbolized

The system gradually becomes increasingly skilled at:

• repeating terminology
• maintaining definitions
• preserving internal consistency

What XVort Is Cautious About

If a research system:

• continuously creates new concepts
• continuously expands its terminology system
• continuously uses internal concepts to explain other internal concepts

then a form of closed cognitive circulation may gradually emerge.

Its internal logic becomes increasingly self-consistent, while attention toward actual problems slowly weakens.

Because of this, XVort intentionally attempts to suppress:

• premature naming
• terminology inflation
• theoretical closure
• excessive internal self-consistency

And instead tries to:

• preserve reality anchors
• reference mature theories
• keep observations open
• avoid using concepts to explain concepts

There is nothing inherently wrong with terminology itself.
The real issue is whether the original reality behind those terms can still be correctly perceived and understood.

XVort Terminology Admission Mechanism

The author consistently believes that terms do not emerge out of nowhere.

Most terminology originates from long-term recurring phenomena in reality, gradually stabilized through sustained observation, analysis, summarization, and abstraction.

In other words, terminology is often a stable symbolic representation of reality anchors.

Because of this, XVort maintains a deliberately cautious, restrained, and self-constrained attitude toward terminology.

This also means that terminology used within XVort is expected to satisfy several basic conditions:

• It must consistently correspond to some recurring phenomenon observed over long periods of time.
• It should be traceable to existing mature theories or established research traditions.
• It should remain relatively stable in meaning across different languages and different contextual environments.

Note:
This project is an ongoing independent research effort developed in spare time.
Because of limited time and maintenance capacity,
English documents may contain translation inaccuracies or semantic deviations from the original Chinese texts.
The Chinese version remains the primary reference whenever ambiguity exists.