1. From embryonic fields to universal pattern
We have seen that morphogenesis is the actualisation of relational potential, and that recurrence of form is due to reflexive alignment rather than causal memory. But this principle is not limited to embryos. It scales: to species, ecosystems, and even symbolic systems.
Where Sheldrake spoke of “memory in nature,” relational ontology recognises memory as structural persistence: patterns of potential stabilising themselves through successive actualisations.
2. Habit and stability without storage
In this framework:
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Habit is the repeated actualisation of a construal within a stable relational topology.
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Stability arises not from code, blueprint, or information, but from the coherence of the potential itself.
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Systems “learn” not by accumulating data, but by maintaining the possibility space that makes recurrence probable and meaningful.
The world does not remember by keeping traces; it remembers by structuring itself to allow familiar forms to recur. Form, in effect, is its own memory.
3. Alignment as learning
Reflexive alignment generalises across scales:
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Cells: local alignment produces tissues and organs.
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Organisms: alignments produce species-typical patterns of growth and behaviour.
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Social systems: repeated symbolic and cultural construals stabilise collective potential.
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Symbolic systems: languages, myths, and scientific paradigms recur because the topology of meaning constrains possible instantiations.
In each case, recurrence is a system actualising its own potential coherently, not a past influencing a present.
4. Evolution as refinement of potential
The appearance of new forms across evolutionary time can also be read relationally:
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Variation is the exploration of potential.
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Selection is the stabilisation of coherent patterns.
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Recurrence of advantageous structures reflects reflexive alignment at the systemic level: what can align successfully tends to persist.
This reframing preserves Sheldrake’s insight that life repeats itself while discarding metaphysical causality. Evolution is the continuous tuning of potential through reflexive actualisation, not the mechanical inheritance of instructions.
5. Semiotic and ontological implications
Memory as alignment shows that life is meaning in motion:
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Each instance of form is a semiotic act, an interpretation of relational potential.
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Recurrence is not replication but re-interpretation under the same constraints.
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The world “learns” by constraining itself, not by storing information externally.
In short: habit, form, and evolution are all expressions of reflexive alignment—structural persistence actualised anew in each event.
6. Next: Toward a Morphogenetic Cosmology
The final post of the series will expand this insight beyond biology, exploring how reflexive alignment structures not just embryos, species, or social systems, but the very cosmos. Form, habit, and meaning are all manifestations of relational potential at scale.
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