Temporal Horizons of Worlding: 2 Memory and the Persistence of Worlds

Memory is often conceived as a repository of the past—a collection of traces, images, or records. Within a relational ontology of worlding, memory must be reconceived as an active component of temporal fields: a mechanism through which past worlds persist, resonate, and condition the emergence of present and future worlds. Memory is not merely retention; it is relational actualisation, an ongoing interplay of sedimented potentialities and current construals.

Each world carries with it traces of prior worlds, not as static imprints but as dynamically engaged affordances. These traces inform the present by modulating possibilities: certain paths become more likely, others less so, and new potentials are continuously co-constituted in the interplay of remembering and actualising. Memory, then, functions as both a stabiliser and a transformer. It sustains coherence by maintaining continuity across temporal layers, yet it simultaneously enables novelty by refracting past patterns into new configurations.

Persistence of worlds through memory is not uniform. Some temporal traces endure through repeated resonance, becoming “thick” features of a world’s construal, while others fade, attenuated by lack of alignment or incompatibility with emergent configurations. The selective endurance of memory is itself relational: it depends upon the interactions of multiple co-individuated worlds, each influencing which traces are amplified, muted, or recombined.

Consider, for example, the temporal field of a linguistic community. The forms, structures, and conventions of speech persist across generations not as fixed objects but as relational patterns, continuously actualised in dialogue and practice. Here, memory is enacted: it exists in the patterns that speakers perpetuate, adapt, or abandon, linking past uses to present acts and future potentials. Similarly, ecological worlds retain memory in the sediment of geological strata, the genetic legacies of organisms, or the cyclical rhythms of climate systems, each layer interacting with emergent conditions to shape the unfolding of the present.

Memory thus mediates between stability and emergence. It is neither a mere archive nor a deterministic template; it is a relational conduit through which temporal potentials circulate. By attending to the persistence of worlds via memory, we recognise that every present moment is temporally plural: it is threaded with echoes of prior worlds even as it gestures toward the actualisation of novel configurations. Memory, in this sense, is a temporal infrastructure—a dynamic network of influence, resonance, and constraint.

Engaging with memory relationally also requires acknowledging its selective and perspectival nature. Not all traces endure equally, and not all worlds are equally attentive to the same memories. The persistence of a world is thus an ongoing negotiation among overlapping temporalities, each drawing upon, transforming, or suppressing aspects of the past. Memory, far from being an inert backdrop, is an active participant in worlding: it shapes what can emerge, constrains what is possible, and enables worlds to persist across the shifting horizon of time.

Next in the series: Anticipation and the Horizon of Emergence, where we will explore how the future—like the past—is a relational construal, shaping the trajectories of worlds even before they come into being.