Glossary for the BAL-Looping Framework of Consciousness

This glossary introduces key terms from the BAL-looping framework, explained in detail in Seven Dialogs between Haplous and Synergos. According to this functional framework, every mode of subjective experience begins when the brain learns to attend to the natural resonance created by incipient activity in its own speech output channel. This is a special case of what neuroscientists call neural reuse; in this framework, it is defined as BAL-looping. Grounded in evolutionary theory, the BAL-looping framework makes falsifiable predictions and treats every term as functional and material, never abstract. It begins with the brain at large (BAL), the overall brain-body system whose cybernetic goal-seeking behavior relies on an internal model of the environment. Elements of that model that stand in for entities, qualities, or relationships in the external environment are called neuronal proxies. To communicate these proxies, humans have an additional component which in functional terms acts as a proxy transfer device (PTD) – commonly called the language faculty – enabling the transfer of proxy configurations from one brain to another. The PTD’s outgoing channel for speech carries activity that creates a corresponding resonance in the receptive channel. The BAL discovers that it can attend to this resonance while withholding the final motor act of speech, allowing it to activate proxies internally. This can be described as a repurposing of the PTD – not by rewiring it, but by applying its natural resonance for a new function. This process underlies every mode of subjective experience. The framework relies on demonstrably real functional elements and relationships – sensory input, the internal model of the environment, behavioral output, the PTD, and neural reuse – without positing any further theoretical layer specific to subjective experience. The glossary can be read independently as an introduction or alongside the Seven Dialogs as a review. Readers seeking a fuller treatment – building from cybernetic and evolutionary first principles into a consistent account of subjective experience – are encouraged to consult the Seven Dialogs. (Working Glossary – Updated on September 9, 2026 – Same as the April 27 version, except that the extended entry on Functional Parsimony has been removed for brevity and to avoid unnecessary comparison with other frameworks. This editorial change does not alter the architecture of the BAL-looping framework.)