{
  "id": "scale.parameter",
  "term": "scale",
  "sense": "parameter",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 12,
  "arena": "parameter.condition window.range wall.range-end drift.aimless",
  "domain": "window",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "A parameter whose window is narrower than another parameter, so that drift in the thing appears greater when observed through the wider parameter.",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "parameter.condition",
      "window.range",
      "wall.range-end",
      "drift.aimless",
      "narrow.spatial",
      "wide.spatial"
    ],
    "interaction": "The difference in width between two parameter windows amplifies the perceived drift when observed through the wider one.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "comparative narrowness of parameter windows",
      "amplified perceived drift"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Hubble Space Telescope's gyroscope failures caused attitude drift, requiring wider orbital corrections every few years.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2008, Iceland’s banking sector collapse revealed how currency scale magnified drift in national wealth estimates.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "Neural firing rates in the hippocampus appear erratic when measured in milliseconds, but stabilize over seconds.",
      "domain": "biology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "scale",
    "scaled",
    "scales",
    "scaling"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "retrofit:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "Sample/abstract-concepts-as-ranges.md"
    ],
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Removed 'great.size' and 'windows.opening' as irrelevant; added 'narrow.spatial' and 'wide.spatial' to ground the comparison of window widths. Kept core parameter and drift components essential to the"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-scale.parameter"
}