Cosmos of Possibility: The Architecture of Becoming 1 Possibility as Ontological Ground

When philosophy, physics, or theology begin their stories, they nearly always begin with what is. Substance, being, matter, particles, laws, God, energy — some foundational “thing” or “principle” is installed as the anchor of reality.

But this misses the pulse of becoming. What if reality is not anchored in what is, but in what can be?

Possibility precedes actuality. The world is not a warehouse of objects, nor a stage governed by pre-written laws, but an unfolding of potential. Actuality is not a brute given; it is a cut in the flow of possibility, a perspectival crystallisation that emerges when relations meet thresholds and constraints.

This is why we say possibility is ontological ground. It is not mere potentiality hovering behind reality, waiting to be triggered. Possibility is the fabric of relation itself — the open horizon from which actuality continuously emerges.

By reframing reality in these terms, we gain a different picture of what it means to exist. Instead of treating the world as a completed inventory, we learn to see it as an evolving field of unfolding possibility, where each actualisation is provisional, perspectival, and embedded in relation.

This shift will guide the series:

• from myth to science, we will see how different worldings have framed the possible,

• from theology to politics, how possibility has been controlled, constrained, or expanded,

• and ultimately, how a relational ontology reveals cosmos itself as the architecture of possibility.

To understand reality, we begin not with being but with becoming — not with the actual, but with the possible.