Sustainability: The matter of time horizon and semantic closure

It is argued that the time horizon of consideration in our present efforts at sustainability is not the correct time horizon. Implementation of the correct time horizon is revealed to require a bi-level control mode that has been termed semantic closure in theoretical biology. Dalyʹs institutions for a steady-state economy are disclosed to afford the necessary semantic closure. However, it is required that those institutions be switched from a steady-state mode of operation to a peculiar pulsing mode of operation according to seminal calculations by Dyson if true sustainability is to be attained.