AIM Framework glossary
Entanglement
Canonical definition
Entanglement is the reciprocal co-determination of valuations between Individuals wherever wM is non-zero, which makes desires relational rather than independent. Each Individual functions simultaneously as Model and as imitator in ongoing cycles, rendering the partition between autonomous preference and socially transmitted value empirically intractable and situation-dependent.
Explanation
You are being copied while you are copying, continuously, and neither party notices. Because the influence runs in both directions at once and neither end is tagged, there is no clean line to be drawn between what you want on your own account and what you have taken from the people around you. The line is not merely hard to find. Under Source Opacity it cannot be read from the inside: the two contributions arrive at the Decision Hub already summed. This is why the framework speaks of an Individual's motivational profile rather than of their authentic preferences, and why intervention addresses the conditions of coupling rather than anyone's power to introspect their way out. The degree of Entanglement is itself situation-dependent: an Individual's AIM Weights vary with context, cognitive state and social environment rather than being fixed traits, so environments can be built to lower mimetic Salience or to raise it.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct.
Derivation
Chapter 8, Section 8.10; Chapter 19, Section 19.5; Chapter 19, Section 19.9; Chapter 8, Section 8.10.2.
Related terms
- Mimetic Desire (M)
- Mimesis
- AIM Weights (wA
- wI
- wM)
- Source Opacity
- Coupling Strength
- Culture
- Relationalism