Ergodic

This word has been used in many contexts. It’s originally related to mathematics, but has been repurposed in several domains.

Generally, it means that a system which appears to be chaotic will eventually return to a previously-known state. So, if we consider one combination of all variables in a system as a “state,” an ergodic system will eventually return to that state at some point.

(…I think. Seriously, it’s complicated.)

I found the word in relation to interactive fiction. An author proposed a new phrase – “ergodic literature” – to refer to fiction that is non-linear and requires effort on the past of the reader to consume.

The adjective I propose for this function is “ergodic,” which implies a situation in which a chain of events (a path, a sequence of actions, etc.) has been produced by the nontrivial efforts of one or more individuals or mechanisms.

Now, that doesn’t totally fit the original, mathematical description, but it implies a system in which any moment is a collection of variable states.

Why I Looked It Up

I originally found the word from an article called The Best Ergodic Fiction. The summary of that article reads:

The best fiction doesn’t have to be straightforward, and some novels contain clever devices to make the reader complicit in the story itself. [This article] recommends five gamified novels that subvert our ideas of how fiction works.

The quote in the explanation is from the book Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (cover above), which is generally considered the source from which it was coined.