The Gap Between Reality and Tongue
The Myceloom framework posits that language is not merely descriptive but constitutive of reality. An epistemic crisis arises when technology evolves faster than the language used to contain it. The result is a form of cognitive dissonance: knowing exactly what is meant while being unable to name it properly.
This is not a minor inconvenience. It is a crisis of knowledge. Without the right name, the thought cannot be fully formed, shared, or built upon. The phenomenon remains slippery, defined only by what it is not (e.g., "The Decentralized Web" tells us there is no center, but not what actually holds it together).
Historical Precedents
The Machine Before the Word
When Gutenberg introduced the printing press in the 15th century, Europe had no word for "broadcasting." Observers called it a "mechanical scribe," implying it was just a faster way to copy manuscripts. This was an epistemic failure: it missed the fundamental shift from copying to disseminating. The technology existed, but the cultural understanding—enabled by language—lagged for decades.
The Internet Before Cyberspace
Similarly, in the late 20th century, we struggled to name the place where digital interaction happened. We called it the "Information Superhighway," a metaphor that implied state control (roads), toll booths, and linear travel. It wasn't until William Gibson coined "Cyberspace" in 1982 that we had a word for the "consensual hallucination" of the network itself.
The Metaphor Trap
The primary symptom of an epistemic crisis is the over-reliance on metaphor. We map the unfamiliar onto the familiar to cope. We call the distributed server farms "The Cloud" to make them feel light and ethereal. But this metaphor obscures the heavy, industrial reality of the infrastructure (energy consumption, water cooling, corporate ownership).
An epistemic crisis is resolved only through Neologism—the invention of a new word that breaks the reliance on metaphor and allows the thing to be seen as it truly is.