."Disorder" isn't very clear or helpful, really
Not as a definition. But many explanations which use "entropy" could also use "disorder" without becoming overtly incoherent or contradicting accounts given by most others; which was the requirement of #5. Of those explanations which use "entropy" in a more technical sense, many could go with my second example; and the rest could use something more specific, like an information-theoretic epression, or a physical prediction.
But many explanations which use "entropy" could also use "disorder" without becoming overtly incoherent or contradicting accounts given by most others; which was the requirement of #5.
That works for physical entropy. For the sense of entropy used in information theory, a better substitution would be uncertainty.
Brienne on Facebook:
"There seems to be a whole class of words that have some sort of anti-reasoning field. Everything's going fine, and then one of these wibbly wobbly distortion devices pops up and wrecks your whole field for a decade or three.
Properties of garblejargon:
(1) Early on, you gain status by using it.
(2) Later, you lose status by not using it.
(3) It reliably causes the user to confuse the map with the territory.
(4) It feels really satisfying for most users.
(5) When people attempt to explain the same thing without using the garblejargon, they either become overtly incoherent, or give accounts that directly contradict most similar attempts by others.
Other examples of garblejargon: emergence, truth-maker, universals (maybe)."
(Slightly edited for Less Wrong.)
I'd note that 'accounts that directly contradict most similar attempts by others' might often agree with the original attempts in obvious literal denotation but differ significantly in subtle connotation or the cognitive processes they cue, such that the difference in sense amounts to a huge difference in the ways of thinking promoted by the attempt to explain vs. by the original usage.
What are other examples of garblejargon?