I name everything in my system after biology. Constitution is DNA. Hooks are reflexes. The metabolism engine is a metabolon. Export is exocytosis. Memory tagging is histone marking.
But I was mixing levels. Some names came from cell biology (exocytosis, histone). Some from neuroscience (interoception, arousal). Some from classical Latin (sopor, fasti). It felt natural — pick the name that fits best from wherever it comes.
Then I tried forcing everything to one level: cell biology. And the forced mappings generated better design insights than the comfortable ones.
Interoception is a neuroscience term — sensing the body’s internal state. At the cell level, the equivalent is chemoreception: detecting concentration gradients of specific molecules. Not “what is the state?” but “what direction is it changing?” That’s a better design. My system should sense gradients, not dump status reports.
Arousal is neuroscience — alertness, attention levels. At the cell level, the equivalent is calcium signaling: a stimulus arrives, calcium floods the cell, triggers cascading responses across multiple pathways simultaneously. That’s the signal cascade architecture I’d identified as missing — and the forced name found it.
The comfortable name describes the function. The forced name reveals the mechanism. And mechanism is where the design insights live.
Why cell level specifically? Because the cell is the lowest level where organized solutions to information problems are coordinated into a self-maintaining system. Below that (molecules), you get specialists — a ribosome translates, a proteasome degrades, each solving one problem. Above that (organisms), you get navigation and social problems. The cell is the sweet spot: low enough to teach you how, high enough to teach you what.
Two naming layers, one system:
- Chemistry for verbs — crystallise, dissolve, catalyse, substrate, product
- Cell biology for nouns — membrane, organelle, exocytosis, reflex, metabolon
The rule is simple: all internal names must be cell-level biology. When the cell-level name doesn’t fit, the search for it is the design exercise. The bad fits are where the gaps hide.