Morphogenesis I: The Organism and the Collective: 3 The Cut of Coordination

Multicellularity emerges not simply through proximity or aggregation, but through the creation of a relational boundary — a cut — that distinguishes the potential of the collective from the potential of the individual cell. This cut is the locus of individuation: the point at which the collective construes its members as differentiated actors, and where each cell actualises capacities relative to the collective field.

Understanding the Relational Cut

In relational ontology, a cut does not imply separation in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a perspectival distinction: a way of partitioning potentialities such that certain possibilities become individuated. Within a cellular collective, the cut establishes which patterns belong to the collective as a whole and which belong to individual cells.

By delineating potentials in this manner, the collective gains structure: it becomes possible to coordinate actions, allocate functions, and stabilise emergent organisation. Without the cut, all cellular interactions would remain undifferentiated, producing only loose, probabilistic behaviours characteristic of aggregates.

Coordination as Actualisation

Coordination occurs when cells align their individuated potentials in response to the constraints and affordances defined by the collective cut. Each cell’s behaviour is both constrained by the collective and expressive of its own individuated potential. Actualisation, in this context, is perspectival: it emerges from the interplay between what the collective can do and what the cell can do.

This relational framing dissolves the need for teleological explanations. Cells do not act “for the sake of the organism”; they actualise capacities within a field of structured potential. Function is a consequence of alignment, not a preordained goal.

Examples in Multicellular Systems

Consider the early stages of embryogenesis: cells differentiate into distinct types not by following a central blueprint, but through local interactions and the constraints imposed by neighbouring cells. The relational cut ensures that each cell’s potential is realised in coordination with others, producing organised tissues and eventual organs.

Similarly, in simpler multicellular organisms such as Volvox colonies, somatic and reproductive cells differentiate because the collective potential is partitioned: some potentials are constrained to support motility, others to support reproduction. The cut is the relational mechanism that enables this functional distribution.

Reflexivity and Emergent Identity

The cut is also reflexive: it allows the collective to monitor and adjust its own structure. As cells respond to local constraints, they reshape the collective potential, which in turn modifies the relational cut itself. Identity and function co-emerge: the organism is defined by the pattern of differentiated potentials, while individual cells derive their identity through their relational positioning within that pattern.

Conclusion

The cut of coordination is the key ontological mechanism through which multicellular life individuates. It is the relational boundary that defines potentials, enables coordination, and actualises differentiation without invoking teleology. Through this perspectival mechanism, the collective and the individual co-construct their identities, producing the emergent organisation characteristic of multicellular systems.

In the next post, Functional Differentiation as Construal, we will examine how specialised cellular roles arise not as deterministic assignments but as perspectival alignments, further elaborating the relational grammar of multicellular life.