The Morphogenesis of Multicellularity: 4 Organism as Field of Reflex — Tissues and Organs as Differentiated Construals

As cells align and boundaries multiply, the organism begins to emerge not merely as a collection of parts, but as a field of reflexive construal. Tissues and organs are no longer accidental aggregations; they are semiotic actualisations of relational potential, differentiated expressions that maintain the coherence of the whole.

Each tissue interprets its role within the organism: muscle construes movement, epithelium construes separation and contact, neurons construe signalling. Organs integrate these construals, folding multiple potentials into coherent, context-sensitive forms. In effect, the organism reads and writes itself across scales: each local construal is a contribution to the global pattern, and each global pattern shapes local interpretation.

This reflexivity distinguishes multicellular life from mere aggregation. The field of the organism interprets itself through differentiation. Gradients, boundaries, and feedback loops become semiotic instruments, allowing the system to maintain coherence even as parts fluctuate, divide, or die. Morphogenesis is no longer just an unfolding of potential; it is the organism’s self-interpreting topology.

In this view, individuality is not lost but multiplied and folded. Each cell’s construal contributes to the collective, and the collective feeds back to stabilise each cell. The organism exists in this ongoing dialogue — a recursive negotiation of difference and alignment. Tissues and organs are the sentences of this dialogue; the organism itself is the narrative, a living grammar of reflexive possibility.

Through this lens, multicellularity is not a structure imposed from above, but a field realised through mutual construal — a system whose stability, flexibility, and coherence emerge from the continuous interplay of its semiotic parts.