Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 6 Topology of Evolving Potential

We have now traced the full dynamics of structured potential beyond semiotic systems. From vertical and lateral clines to temporal reconfiguration, sedimentation, and innovation, we see a coherent relational pattern across domains. It is time to integrate these insights into a topology of evolving potential.

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1. The Axes of Possibility

The topology is structured along three dimensions:

1. Vertical: potential → actualisation

2. Lateral: variation across agents, loci, or entities (density distribution)

3. Temporal: cumulative history of actualisations, producing sedimentation and stabilised innovation

Every point in this field represents a subpotential, whose probability is shaped by past actualisations and current engagement.

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2. Density as the Structural Metric

Within this topology, density is the key relational measure:

• Thick regions: stabilised, frequently actualised potential (tradition, emergent norms)

• Thin regions: underexplored, flexible potential (innovation, emergent possibilities)

• Intermediate regions: evolving, partially stabilised potential

Density encodes history, accessibility, and potential for change, creating a landscape that is both structured and generative.

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3. Recursive Dynamics

The system evolves recursively:

• Actualisation along the vertical axis redistributes density

• Agent variation along the lateral axis produces patterned individuation

• Temporal accumulation produces sedimentation and stabilisation

• Low-density regions provide openings for novel configurations

The interaction of these dynamics ensures that structured potential remains dynamic, patterned, and relational.

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4. Cross-Domain Implications

This topology applies universally to any structured potential field:

• Cultural systems: norms, conventions, rituals

• Technological systems: designs, tools, protocols

• Social systems: rules, policies, interactions

• Other domains: any system where structured potential is engaged over time

The relational ontology captures both continuity and novelty, providing a systematic, calm, and domain-independent framework.

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5. Concluding Reflection

By synthesising vertical, lateral, and temporal dynamics, we see that:

• Structured potential is relational: no subpotential exists independently of context, agents, or history

• Evolution is intrinsic: density redistribution, sedimentation, and thinning drive ongoing change

• Novelty and stability coexist: thickened regions preserve continuity; thin regions enable innovation

This topology of evolving potential is the conceptual culmination of our two series: a bridge from semiotic systems to a general ontology of evolving potential, preserving all the relational and dynamic logic we uncovered.

Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 5 Innovation as Stabilised Thinning

In the previous post, we examined sedimentation and stabilisation: the accumulation of density over time, producing continuity and historical structure in potential fields. Yet no system is static. Novelty emerges from low-density regions, which are underdetermined, flexible, and generative. This is innovation as stabilised thinning.

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1. Low-Density Regions as Engines of Novelty

Thin regions of potential have the following properties:

• Rarely actualised, hence less constrained by established patterns

• Flexible, allowing new configurations or reinterpretations

• Selectively stabilised when actualised repeatedly, potentially becoming new dense regions

Innovation is therefore a natural product of the system’s topology, not an external intervention.

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2. Cross-Domain Examples

• Technology: experimental designs or prototypes explore underused combinations of components, some of which become new standards

• Culture: avant-garde art or emergent genres arise from underexplored motifs or forms

• Social systems: novel practices or policies emerge in spaces where conventions are weak or absent

In every case, low-density regions provide opportunity for transformation, while thickened regions provide continuity.

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3. Visualising Stabilised Thinning

Structured potential field

███████   ← sedimented / stabilised regions (tradition)
██                         ← emerging innovations (thinning regions gaining density)
█                             ← unexplored potential (open space for novelty)

• Middle layer = innovations in process of stabilisation

• Low-density regions = raw potential for future novelty

• Recursive actualisation thickens some innovations while leaving others fluid

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4. Key Principles

1. Relational emergence: Innovation depends on interaction with the existing density landscape

2. Cumulative dynamics: Repeated actualisation gradually reweights density, producing evolution

3. Invariant logic: The same density principles observed in semiotics operate across any structured potential field

By framing innovation as stabilised thinning, we capture how systems remain generative, even after long periods of sedimentation and stability. Novelty is built into the relational ontology, not imposed externally.

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5. Preparing the Synthesis

In the next and final post of Series 2, we will synthesise:

• Vertical cline (potential → actualisation)

• Lateral cline (agent variation / density)

• Temporal dynamics (development, sedimentation, innovation)

The goal: a complete topology of evolving potential, showing how structured possibility unfolds, accumulates, and generates novelty in any domain.

Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 4 Sedimentation and Stabilisation in Potential Fields

In the previous post, we traced actualisation and density dynamics across multiple domains. We saw how vertical and lateral clines, combined with repeated engagement, shape the distribution of density. Now we examine the temporal accumulation of density, producing sedimentation and stabilisation — the general analogue of tradition.

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1. Sedimentation Defined

Sedimentation occurs when frequently actualised regions of potential accumulate probability over time. These thickened regions become:

• More likely to be selected in future actualisations

• Relatively stable across agents and contexts

• Resistant to rapid fluctuation

In short, sedimentation is the historical imprint of repeated actualisation, forming a structured probability landscape in the system.

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2. Stabilisation Across Domains

Examples of sedimentation and stabilisation include:

• Technology: widely adopted design patterns become de facto standards

• Social norms: repeated behaviors crystallise into conventional practice

• Cultural forms: recurrent artistic motifs persist across generations

In all cases, stabilised density represents cumulative history, providing continuity while still permitting exploration in low-density regions.

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3. Visualising Temporal Density

Structured potential over time

Time 1: █ █ █              ← initial actualisation
Time 2: █ █ █ █        ← thickening of frequently used regions
Time 3: █ █ █ █ █   ← stabilised / sedimented regions

Low-density regions remain thin → innovation potential persists

• Thickened regions = sedimented, stabilised potential

• Thin regions = underexplored, emergent novelty

• Repeated engagement produces recursive, patterned probability landscapes

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4. Relational Insights

1. History is encoded in density: the system carries the record of past actualisations

2. Stability is emergent, not imposed: no external rules are required to produce structure

3. Innovation coexists with stability: low-density regions remain generative, ensuring ongoing evolution

Sedimentation, in this ontology, is therefore the accumulation of structured potential across time, giving the system both continuity and flexibility.

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5. Preparing the Next Post

In the next post, we will explore innovation as stabilised thinning in general potential fields. This completes the temporal and structural picture: low-density regions provide the engine of novelty, ensuring that structured potential remains dynamic even in historically stabilised systems.

Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 3 Actualisation and Density Dynamics

In the previous post, we introduced the relational ontology of evolving potential. The principle is simple but powerful: structured potential, when engaged repeatedly, exhibits patterned redistribution, cumulative sedimentation, and emergent novelty.

Now we examine how these dynamics play out in concrete but non-semiotic domains, revealing the invariant logic of density redistribution.

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1. Vertical Clines Across Domains

Just as in semiotics, every domain exhibits a vertical cline: potential → actualisation. Examples include:

• Technological systems: Designs, prototypes, and implementations actualise a range of possibilities embedded in prior frameworks.

• Cultural practices: Rituals, performances, and enacted norms narrow potential into realised events.

• Social interactions: Decisions, policies, and conventions actualise latent possibilities within collective systems.

Each actualisation is a cut through structured potential, thickening some regions of density and thinning others.

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2. Lateral Clines and Individuation

Variation across agents persists in general domains. Each actor:

• Navigates the system according to experience, constraints, and preference

• Produces a lateral density distribution analogous to individuation in semiotics

• Generates patterns of accessibility and fluency that differ across the population

Together, these lateral clines shape collective patterns of probability over time.

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3. Temporal Reconfiguration

Actualisation is dynamic: repeated engagement produces density reconfiguration along the vertical and lateral axes:

• Thickening: frequently actualised regions become more probable in future interactions

• Thinning: neglected regions decrease in probability, creating spaces for novelty

Cumulatively, this produces development at the agent level and collective evolution at the system level, exactly as observed in semiotic systems.

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4. Visualising Density Dynamics

Structured potential field

Vertical: Potential → Actualisation
Horizontal: Agent / Locus variation
Temporal: Past actualisation → present probability

█████  ← heavily actualised / thickened regions
███           ← moderately used
█                   ← low-density / innovation potential

• Thickened regions guide future engagement

• Thin regions provide openings for emergent patterns

• Density evolves recursively, creating a self-organising topology of possibility

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5. Key Takeaways

1. Invariance: The relational logic of density redistribution holds across domains.

2. Relational emergence: No potential exists in isolation; actualisation depends on structured interaction between system, agents, and context.

3. Historical accumulation: Past actualisations shape current and future probability landscapes, producing sedimentation and tradition even outside language.

4. Novelty generation: Low-density regions remain generative, providing the engine for system evolution.

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By making these dynamics explicit, we see that semiotics is just one instance of a domain-independent pattern. The relational ontology of evolving potential applies calmly, systematically, and universally, setting the stage for exploring historical sedimentation, emergent stability, and innovation in the next posts.

Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 2 The Recognition Moment — Relational Ontology Emerges

In exploring structured potential beyond semiotics, a pattern becomes unmistakable. Across domains — cultural, technological, social — the same dynamics recur:

• Actualisation narrows potential along a vertical cline

• Variation across actors produces a lateral density distribution

• Repeated engagement reshapes density over time, producing development, evolution, sedimentation, and innovation

These dynamics are systematic, invariant, and relational. They do not depend on language, text, or symbolic representation. The semiotic case is merely one instantiation of a more general principle.

1. Naming the Principle

We can now state it calmly, without rhetorical fanfare:

What we have observed is a relational ontology of evolving potential.

This term captures the essential idea:

• Relational — meaning and possibility emerge from the interplay between structure, instances, and agents; no element is independent

• Ontology — this is a domain-general framework describing what exists as structured potential, not a specific semiotic system

• Evolving potential — density redistribution, sedimentation, and thinning drive ongoing transformation

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2. Implications of the Relational Ontology

1. Predictable dynamism: Any structured system with repeated actualisation will exhibit patterned redistribution of potential.

2. Historical contingency: The density landscape is shaped by past actualisations, producing sedimentation and tradition in any domain.

3. Space for novelty: Thin regions of density are the loci of emergent innovation, guiding system evolution without external imposition.

4. Universality without reductionism: The principle applies across domains, yet preserves the specificity of each instance and context.

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3. Visualising the Ontology

We can extend the vertical/lateral/temporal axes introduced in semiotic systems:

• Vertical: potential → actualisation

• Lateral: variation across agents, entities, or loci

• Temporal: cumulative evolution and reweighting

Every system is thus a dynamic topology of possibility, continuously shaped by density redistribution.

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4. Calm, Systematic Revelation

By framing the principle in this way, the word ontology is neither sensational nor forced. It emerges as the natural abstraction of observed relational patterns. The semiotic case is exemplary, but the logic is domain-independent.

In the next posts, we will explore how this relational ontology manifests across:

• Multiple instances interacting in parallel or sequentially

• Historical accumulation of patterns

• Emergent structures of stability and novelty

This sets the stage for a full exploration of topology, innovation, and collective evolution in general potential fields, completing the bridge from semiotics to a domain-general ontology.

Relational Ontology of Evolving Potential: 1 Structured Potential: Beyond Semiotics

In the previous series, we traced how semiotic systems evolve through density redistribution: instantiation along a vertical cline, individuation along a lateral cline, development through reconfiguration, and collective evolution producing tradition and innovation.

These dynamics, while revealed in language, are not intrinsically linguistic. They reflect a more general principle: systems of structured potential undergo patterned actualisation, redistribution, and transformation whenever multiple agents or instances engage with them.

1. Vertical and Lateral Clines Revisited

We can retain the same conceptual apparatus:

• Vertical cline: potential → actualisation

• Lateral cline: variation across individuals, entities, or loci of engagement

• Temporal dimension: development and cumulative reweighting

The difference is that these axes now refer to any structured system of possibilities, not only semiotic systems. For instance:

• Cultural practices: individuals actualise norms, producing thickened or thinned patterns over time

• Technological systems: engineers, designers, or users actualise subpotentials in configurations that redistribute the space of future possibilities

• Social norms or conventions: communities collectively reweight potential through repeated enactment

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2. Actualisation as Density Redistribution

Just as in semiotics, every instance narrows the potential, shifting density:

• Regions frequently actualised thicken, increasing the probability of future recurrence

• Rarely accessed regions thin, opening space for novel actualisation

Development, innovation, and tradition are thus domain-independent processes, reflecting the same relational logic of density.

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3. From Semiotic Specificity to Generality

This step is subtle but crucial: we are not inventing a new ontology arbitrarily. Instead, we are abstracting the invariant principle revealed in semiotic systems:

Any structured potential field, when engaged by multiple agents over time, exhibits patterned redistribution, cumulative sedimentation, and emergent novelty.

By framing it this way, the reader is gently prepared to see ontology emerge naturally, without a jarring leap.

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4. Preparing the Recognition Moment

In the next post, we will make the explicit conceptual pivot. We will name this invariant principle a relational ontology of evolving potential, showing that:

• The semiotic case was exemplary, not exceptional

• Structured potential is historical, relational, and dynamic

• The logic of density redistribution underlies any evolving system

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 7 Topology of Semiotic Possibility

Over the course of this series, we have traced the dynamics of semiotic systems through the lens of density redistribution. We began with instantiation as a vertical cline, explored individuation as lateral variation, followed development as temporal reconfiguration, expanded to collective evolution, and examined the dual forces of tradition and innovation.

Now, we can view the semiotic system as a topology of possibility — a structured, patterned landscape in which meaning is continuously actualised, stabilised, and transformed.

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1. The Topology

Imagine the system as a density field:

• Vertical axis: abstraction → instance (systemic potential → realised text)

• Horizontal axis: lateral variation across individuals (density distribution / individuation)

• Temporal dimension: development and collective evolution, showing density redistribution over time

In this topology:

• Thick regions represent stabilised, frequently actualised potential (tradition)

• Thin regions represent underdetermined, flexible potential (innovation)

• The interplay of thickening and thinning creates structured dynamism, allowing both continuity and novelty

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2. Dynamics Across the Topology

1. Instantiation: movement down the vertical cline actualises potential into a concrete text

2. Individuation: lateral variation produces distinct trajectories across members of the collective

3. Development: reshapes individual density over time, reinforcing some regions, thinning others

4. Collective evolution: repeated individual actualisation redistributes density at the system level

5. Tradition: sedimented probability stabilises frequent patterns

6. Innovation: low-density regions provide openings for novelty, which may thicken into new traditions

These processes are recursive: density changes in one region influence future actualisations across vertical, lateral, and temporal dimensions.

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3. Implications for Semiotic Systems

This density-driven topology explains:

• Why meaning is relational: no text exists independently of system, context, and individual density

• How variation is patterned: individuation and development produce stable yet flexible diversity

• How change occurs naturally: evolution, innovation, and sedimentation are emergent properties of density redistribution, not imposed rules

The system is alive with potential, yet constrained by historical accumulation — a landscape of structured possibility.

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4. Preparing the Transition

With this topology established, we now have the conceptual foundation to abstract the invariant principle: the same dynamics that shape semiotic systems apply to structured potential in general. In the next series, we will move beyond language, allowing the relational logic of density, sedimentation, and innovation to emerge as a general ontology of evolving potential.

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 6 Innovation as Stabilised Thinning

In the previous post, we saw how repeated actualisation thickens certain regions of systemic potential, producing tradition as sedimented probability. Yet semiotic systems are not frozen. Novelty emerges from regions of low or thinning density, where the system is underdetermined. This is innovation as stabilised thinning.

1. Low-Density Regions as Creative Space

Thin regions of density are less frequently actualised, which makes them:

• Flexible and open to reinterpretation

• Less constrained by entrenched conventions

• Potentially rich grounds for novelty

Innovation occurs when these low-density regions are explored, selectively actualised, and gradually stabilised. Over time, some innovations accumulate density, becoming new traditions, while others remain marginal.

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2. Visualising Innovation

Systemic potential (density landscape)

███████         ← established tradition

███                          ← emerging innovations

█                                   ← rarely explored, potential novelty

The middle layer represents innovations in the process of stabilisation: repeated actualisation thickens them, but they remain dynamically flexible.

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3. Key Features of Innovation

1. Relational: Innovation depends on the interaction of individuals with the existing density landscape.

2. Cumulative: Each new actualisation of a low-density region gradually increases its probability, contributing to system evolution.

3. Structured potential: Even novelty is not arbitrary; it emerges within the constraints of systemic potential, guided by patterns of previous density and accessibility.

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4. Innovation and the Evolutionary Cycle

Innovation, in this framework, is inseparable from tradition:

• Thickened regions guide typical usage and provide stability

• Thin regions provide opportunity and flexibility

• Development, evolution, sedimentation, and thinning together form a continuous density-driven cycle

This completes our full account of density dynamics within semiotic systems: vertical and lateral clines, development over time, collective evolution, sedimentation, and innovation.

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5. Preparing for the Final Post

The next and final post of this series will synthesise these dynamics into a topology of semiotic possibility, showing how vertical and lateral clines, density redistribution, tradition, and innovation interact to produce a coherent, patterned field of semiotic potential.

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 5 Tradition as Sedimented Probability

Having explored evolution as collective reweighting, we now turn to the temporal sedimentation of density, which gives rise to tradition in semiotic systems.

1. From Collective Evolution to Historical Patterns

When individuals repeatedly actualise certain subpotentials, density thickens in those regions. Over time, these thickened regions persist across generations of instantiation, forming what we experience as tradition.

• Thick regions = stabilised practices, recurrent structures, conventional forms

• Thin regions = marginal or declining forms, less frequently actualised

Tradition, therefore, is not an external imposition on the system. It is the accumulated trace of past actualisations, a probabilistic record of what has been stabilised through repeated use.

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2. Visualising Sedimented Probability

Systemic potential (historical density)

███████         ← highly sedimented, traditional forms

███                          ← moderately stabilised

█                                   ← rare, marginal forms

Here, density maps directly onto history. The heavier the density, the more likely a subpotential is to be instantiated in future texts. The past literally shapes the present.

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3. Key Properties of Tradition

1. Emergent, not imposed: Tradition arises automatically from repeated actualisation, not from formal rules or authority.

2. Dynamic stability: Even thickened regions remain potentially reconfigurable. Change can occur when low-density regions are explored or high-density regions are perturbed.

3. Relational: Tradition exists in relation to both system and individuals — it is stabilised probability across the collective, not a property of the system alone.

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4. Tradition and Innovation

Tradition and innovation are two sides of the same density logic:

• Tradition = thickened, sedimented density

• Innovation = emergent patterns from thin, underdetermined regions

The interplay between these forces drives semiotic evolution: stability provides continuity, while thinning and underdetermination create openings for novelty.

By understanding tradition as sedimented probability, we preserve the relational, dynamic, and patterned nature of semiotic systems. History is not static; it is the ongoing result of density redistribution through repeated actualisation.

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5. Preparing for Next Post

In the next post, we will explore innovation as stabilised thinning: how novelty emerges from underdetermined regions of density and gradually contributes to the evolving system. This will complete the full view of density-driven semiotic evolution, setting the stage for our synthesis.

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 4 Evolution as Collective Reweighting

So far, we have examined:

• Instantiation as a vertical cline — the narrowing of systemic potential into concrete texts.

• Individuation as a lateral cline — patterned density distributions across individuals.

• Development as density reconfiguration — the dynamic reshaping of an individual’s cline over time.

We now move from the individual to the collective.

1. Collective Evolution Defined

Collective evolution is the system-wide redistribution of potential driven by repeated actualisation across individuals. When many individuals repeatedly actualise certain subpotentials, the density of those regions thickens at the system level. Conversely, underused regions thin, becoming less likely to be selected in future instantiations.

This is not metaphorical. The semiotic system itself adapts its probability landscape according to actual usage patterns, producing a field of structured potential that is historically contingent yet patterned.

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2. Visualising Collective Reweighting

Consider three individuals navigating the same subpotentials:

Systemic potential (collective density)

█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █   ← heavily actualised, thickened regions

█ █ █                              ← moderately used

█                                         ← rarely actualised, thinning

Over time:

• Repeated actualisation → thickened collective density

• Neglected subpotentials → thinning

• Emergent patterns reflect both social convention and the cumulative history of individual development

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3. Key Relational Insights

1. Development feeds evolution: Individual reconfigurations of density create micro-patterns that, when aggregated, become system-wide density shifts.

2. History is structured potential: The semiotic field is always a record of past actualisations, not merely a set of abstract rules.

3. Innovation emerges naturally: Thinned regions of density are not failures; they are spaces of potential novelty. New patterns can crystallise where the field is underdetermined.

In this way, evolution is recursive: density changes at the collective level influence future individual development, which in turn reweights the system, creating a continuous, patterned interplay between individual and collective.

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4. Implications for Semiotic Systems

Understanding evolution as collective reweighting allows us to:

• Explain how linguistic forms, genres, or conventions stabilise or change over time.

• See tradition and innovation as emergent properties of density redistribution, not external impositions.

• Prepare the conceptual terrain for examining how novelty and sedimentation operate within historical fields, the focus of the next two posts.

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 3 Development as Density Reconfiguration

In Posts 1 and 2, we explored instantiation as a vertical cline and individuation as a lateral cline. Each text is an actualisation of systemic potential, and each individual exhibits patterned density across the system. Yet these density patterns are not fixed. Over time, they shift, producing what we call development.

Development is the dynamic reconfiguration of density within an individual’s lateral cline. Some regions of potential become thicker — more accessible, more likely to be actualised — while others may thin, becoming less stable or marginal. These changes are cumulative and patterned:

• Thickening reflects repeated actualisation, practice, or entrenched fluency.

• Thinning reflects disuse, neglect, or displacement by alternative choices.

We can visualise an individual’s cline at two points in time:

Time 1                       Time 2

Individual A:             Individual A:

█ █ █ █ █        █ █ █ █ █ █   ← thickened regions

█ █                        █                              ← thinned regions

Development is not simply learning in the cognitive sense. It is the reshaping of density across systemic potential, guided by interaction with the environment, social practices, and repeated actualisation. Each individual’s lateral cline evolves, producing trajectories of expertise, preference, and variation.

At the collective level, these individual density shifts feed back into the system. Repeated actualisation across members gradually redistributes potential, laying the groundwork for collective evolution, the topic of our next post.

Several points are crucial:

1. Development is perspectival: it looks different from the instance pole (observing actual texts) versus the potential pole (observing shifts in density patterns).

2. It is relational: individual changes depend on both systemic potential and interaction with other individuals.

3. It is dynamic: density distributions are continuously reshaped, never static.

By framing development as density reconfiguration, we see how semiotic systems remain flexible yet patterned, and how individuals’ engagement with systemic potential produces trajectories that are both personal and relational.

In the next post, we will expand from individual development to collective evolution, showing how repeated actualisation across individuals reshapes the semiotic field over time.

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 2 Individuation as Density Distribution

In the previous post, we examined instantiation as a vertical cline, a narrowing of systemic potential from abstract system to concrete instance. Each text is a realisation of some subpotential along this axis, and the token–type perspective clarifies the relation of instance to system.

Yet texts do not emerge from an abstract system in a vacuum. They are produced by individuals, whose relation to the system is unequal and patterned. No two individuals access, weigh, or stabilise the full potential in the same way. Here, we encounter individuation — the lateral variation across members of the collective system.

We can formalise this as a lateral cline of density distribution:

• Thick regions: areas of the system that an individual navigates fluently; high probability of stable actualisation.

• Thin regions: areas that are less accessible, less habitual, or harder to realise; low probability of stable actualisation.

Individuation, then, is not about creating a new system. Nor is it a personal mini-language. Rather, it is the patterned distribution of systemic potential across individuals, expressed through variations in density.

Consider two individuals faced with the same contextual constraints:

• Each draws from the same systemic potential.

• Each actualises a text along the vertical cline.

• Yet differences in density across the lateral cline produce distinct instances, even under identical conditions.

This view preserves several key relational commitments:

1. The system remains shared and collective.

2. Individual variation is patterned, not random.

3. Meaning is always relational, emerging from the interplay of system, context, and individual density.

By situating individuation as density distribution, we can begin to see how variation is neither a flaw nor a noise term. It is structurally necessary, a property of any distributed system in which actualisation occurs through differently weighted access points.

In the next post, we will explore development as density reconfiguration: how individuals’ lateral clines change over time, thickening in some regions, thinning in others, and producing trajectories of learning, expertise, and innovation.

Density and the Evolution of Semiotic Possibility: 1 Instantiating Meaning: Beyond Token–Type

In systemic functional linguistics, instantiation is sometimes described via the token–type relation: a text can be treated as a token of a system, a register, or a language type. This device is useful, but it is perspectival. Seen from the instance pole, one can classify a text in this way. But the cline itself — from systemic potential to instance — remains the fundamental relation.

Viewed from the potential pole, instantiation is not about membership. It is a perspectival cut through structured potential, a narrowing of possibility from system to instance. Every text is an actualisation of systemic potential, a realisation of subpotentials along the cline. The token–type perspective does not oppose this view; it clarifies the relation of lower to higher points along the cline.

We can visualise this as a vertical cline of specification, where token–type classification is meaningful at the instance pole:

Systemic potential (maximally open)  ↑  ← higher abstraction / potential

        │

   Subpotential (partially specified)

        │

    Instance (fully specified)   ↓   ← fully actualised text

A text is a token in the sense that it represents a point on this cline, but it does not exhaust the system’s possibilities. Instantiation remains a dynamic process: each text actualises some subpotential of the system, contributing to the ongoing shaping of meaning.

By foregrounding the cline and situating token–type as a perspectival tool, we preserve the relational logic of systemic functional linguistics. This sets the stage for exploring individuation, development, and collective evolution in subsequent posts, where the focus shifts to how systemic potential is differently distributed and dynamically reconfigured across individuals and over time.

Quantum Cuts: 3 Beyond Relations — The Power of Relational Ontology

In Parts 1 and 2, we traced Quantum Structuralism: the seductive claim that reality is made of relations, not objects. We saw how it destabilises naive object realism, but quietly preserves a hidden substrate, treating structure as ontologically fundamental. Quantum Structuralism replaces objects with structure, but it stops short of the radical cut relational ontology demands.

Here, we make the full move.

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1. Relational Ontology: A Quick Refresher

Relational ontology is not about swapping one “thing” for another. It is about reconceptualising reality from the ground up. Its central pillars are:

1. Systems as theories of potential instances

   • A system is never a collection of things “out there.” It is a structured potential: a framework of possibilities that can be perspectivally actualised.

2. Instantiation as a perspectival cut

   • An instance is not the uncovering of a pre-existing object; it is the actualisation of potential from a particular point of view.

3. Construal as constitutive of phenomenon

   • Phenomena are not discovered; they are construed. Meaning arises through the act of construal, not by mapping an independent world.

4. Phenomenon vs. metaphenomenon

   • First-order phenomena: actualised, experienced events.

   • Second-order metaphenomena: the system-theory-level structures that describe or generalise patterns in phenomena.

   • Quantum mechanics is a metaphenomenal system: one lens among many for describing potential instances.

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2. Why Relations Alone Are Not Enough

Quantum Structuralism’s error is subtle but pervasive:

• It treats relations as independently real, as if they can float free of perspective.

• It assumes a world that exists prior to construal, with structure as the primary furniture.

• It freezes instantiation into patterns that are only locally meaningful.

Relational ontology, by contrast:

• Sees relations as emergent from perspectival cuts, not as pre-existing entities.

• Makes instantiation dynamic, co-constitutive, and perspectival, always depending on potential and actualisation.

• Places meaning and semiotic construal at the centre, rather than physical or structural metaphysics.

The difference is profound: Quantum Structuralism gives us a new object myth. Relational ontology dissolves the myth entirely. The difference can be seen schematically below. Quantum Structuralism stops at structure. Relational ontology goes to construal.

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3. Advantages of Relational Ontology

1. No hidden substrate metaphysics

   • Nothing exists “out there” independently; everything arises through actualisation and construal.

2. Universality across domains

   • Applies equally to physics, language, social systems, and semiotic phenomena.

3. Precision and clarity

   • Maintains the Hallidayan distinction between potential, instance, and construal.

   • Avoids conflating value, meaning, or symbolic systems with physical “structures.”

4. Dynamic instantiation

   • Captures the full cline from potentiality to perspectival actualisation — something structuralism can never fully model.

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4. The Takeaway

Quantum mechanics gives us a window onto a world that does not obey classical object metaphysics. But it does not give us the tools to escape substrate thinking.

Relational ontology shows us the full cut: the quantum world is not a collection of structures or relations to be discovered; it is a domain of perspectival potentials actualised through construal.

In short:

Quantum mechanics destabilises the object myth. Relational ontology dissolves the substrate myth.

If you’ve followed the series, you now see why simply swapping “objects” for “relations” is not enough. To truly think relationally is to embrace the perspectival, co-constitutive, and semiotic character of reality itself.