{
  "id": "erosion.process",
  "term": "erosion",
  "sense": "process",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 12,
  "arena": "emergent systems",
  "domain": "window ontology",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "drift too slow for the system it acts on to register",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "drift.aimless",
      "system.organized",
      "register.record",
      "act.deed"
    ],
    "interaction": "An aimless drift performs an act so slowly that the organized system fails to detect or record it, despite ongoing change within a survivable range.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "undetectable change",
      "persistent unnoticed effect"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Mississippi River shifted its course by 2° over 150 years, unnoticed by riverboat pilots relying on outdated charts.",
      "domain": "geography"
    },
    {
      "text": "The International Space Station loses 100 meters of altitude per day due to atmospheric drag, requiring monthly reboosts.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "The word 'gay' drifted in common usage over decades, until courts no longer recognized its older meaning in contract law.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "drift.aimless",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "differs from drift by rate and registration"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "erosion"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "retrofit:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "Sample/hundred-words-six-terms.md"
    ],
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "window.range and parameter.condition were removed because the definition does not depend on a bounded condition or parameter persistence. Added system.organized, register.record, and act.deed as they "
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-erosion.process"
}