Biological Potential — Actualisation and Individuation: Series Introduction

How does life translate potential into distinct, stable forms? Biological Potential: Actualisation and Individuation explores this question through the lens of relational ontology. Biological systems are fields of potential, and the processes of actualisation (instantiation) and individuation reveal how these potentials are differentiated, stabilised, and recursively propagated.

This series examines:

• The preconditions that enable biological instances to emerge — structured potential, constraints and affordances, relational framing, and stability scaffolds;

• The consequences of actualisation and individuation — emergence of novelty, propagation of constraints, recursive shaping of potential, and semiotic-functional structuring;

• The synthesis, showing how biological potential unfolds as a continuous relational process, generating life’s diversity, complexity, and adaptability.

Readers are invited to trace the dynamics of biological potential across scales — from cells and tissues to organisms, populations, and ecosystems — revealing how instances arise, differentiate, and recursively transform the possibilities for life itself.