From Myth to Metacosmos: Symbolic Orders of Possibility: 10 Synthesis: Symbolic Cosmology and the Becoming of Possibility

From myth to simulation, we have traced the symbolic orders through which human cultures have construed the cosmos—not merely as backdrop to existence, but as a living field of possibility. Each symbolic formation has functioned as both scaffold and horizon: a way of making the world intelligible, and simultaneously a way of shaping what could be imagined, pursued, or brought into being.

The genealogy we have followed reveals that symbolic cosmology is never fixed. Mythic origins gave us narratives of divine creation, where possibility was articulated through sacred story. Philosophy abstracted these narratives into principles, ratios, and logical relations, constraining possibility within the bounds of reason. Theology codified potential through sacred law and ritual, while allegorical literature layered multiple fields of meaning, multiplying potentialities within narrative machines. Rationalist systems then universalised symbolic order through science, while the Romantics countered with plural, affective, and artistic worlds.

Modernism fractured this confidence, foregrounding multiplicity, ambiguity, and perspectivism. Structuralism followed, reconstructing symbolic possibility as a system of relations, differences, and codes. And finally, speculative cosmologies of science fiction and simulation opened onto worlds not yet actualised, symbolically testing futures beyond the present. Each movement has shifted the ground of symbolic construal, yet each remains tethered to the same task: orienting human life within the expanse of possibility.

The reflexivity of this process is key. Symbolic construal does not simply represent possibility—it transforms it. Imagination, narrative, and concept do not passively mirror the cosmos; they actively shape the horizons through which the cosmos is construed. Each symbolic order both reflects historical conditions and generates new trajectories of becoming. Myth produces religion; philosophy produces science; science produces fiction; fiction re-enters science as hypothesis. The symbolic cosmos is recursive: a field where construal itself becomes the engine of possibility.

Seen from this perspective, symbolic cosmology is not ancillary to human understanding—it is constitutive. To construe the cosmos symbolically is to participate in its unfolding, to give form to what might be. Our myths, philosophies, theologies, literatures, sciences, and speculations are not simply archives of thought; they are architectures of potential. They delimit and expand the very conditions under which we perceive, imagine, and actualise reality.

Thus the becoming of possibility is inseparable from the symbolic. As symbolic orders shift, so too does the cosmos we inhabit. Reflexivity, relationality, and historical contingency mark every stage of this genealogy. The cosmos we know is not a singular, objective totality; it is a symbolic field, perpetually re-construed, perpetually re-opened. In this sense, the symbolic cosmos is not only our inheritance but also our ongoing task: to create, critique, and re-imagine the architectures through which possibility becomes.